Deconstruction
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Sometimes, dismantling someone is the only way to salvage as much of him as possible. One Autobot recycles what's left of a lone Constructicon in a post-war world.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Deconstruction (a.k.a. That HooKup Thing)  
**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users/ NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill. livejournal. com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users/ Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users/ ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users/ Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users/ Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www. fanfiction u/ 343547/ Sakiku )  
**Artist:** _Shibara_ ( shibara-ffnet. livejournal. com )  
**Warning:** BDSM, consent issues, (mis)understandings, & sparkplay. In other words, if you're not an adult and/or interested in this sort of stuff, this is your warning to stop reading. Because we're not going to warn you again.  
**Rating:** R.  
**Continuity:** G1 (TF:TM/Season 3 AU) + bits of IDW  
**Characters:** Hook, Kup, Ratchet, Rodimus Prime  
**Disclaimer:** Eight authors, yet not a one of us makes money from this. Hasbro owns Transformers, not us. Variations in TF terminology in this thing owe to the fact that 9 people with varying opinions and headcanon on such matters contributed to it. The Internet has yet to explode because of it.  
**Motivation (Prompt):** Shibara was bored.

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**Part One: Nobody could want this. Right?**

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Picture 1 (all illustrations can be found at archiveofourown works/ 498584 )

_by Shibara_

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The expression on Kup's face was wise. Benevolent, but a bit smug, as if the old Autobot had seen it all before and hadn't been very impressed by it the first time through. He looked downward, and in one hand burnt his cy-gar. The chemical dose smoldered slowly, held out by two fingers until he needed it. For…whatever.

Hook knelt on the floor at his feet, and the Constructicon didn't look at the cy-gar. He was intensely aware of it, the smell and the heat of it, but he carefully didn't look at it. Part of it was because even now he rebelled against showing weakness. Part of it was because Kup's other hand held his chin. The hand was firm, but Hook could easily have broken free of it.

Could, but wouldn't. Kup had simply ordered him to his knees, and Hook had dropped to the floor. His hands weren't tied, because there was no point. The kind of power the Autobot had over him needed no props. Hook didn't - wouldn't - struggle. His hands pressed to his thighs, clenched into tight fists, but he didn't move.

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Picture 2

_by Shibara_

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"What do you want?" the short green Autobot asked, and the cy-gar twitched.

He wasn't looking. He wouldn't look. "You know what I want, Autobot," he ground out. He wanted to look.

"Ah-ah. Don't think you get the gist of how it's going tonight, Hook." The familiar use of his name stripped dignity from his interior surfaces like paint off a wall. The faded blue optics glinted, and the smile twisted into a smirk. "Tonight, you **beg**."

Defiance flattened his mouth into a grim line. "You **know** what I want," he repeated, almost snarling. He hated the games. Hated that something woke in him to play them when he'd do anything to snuff that part of himself out.

The terrible thing about power was not having it. The hand on Hook's chin lightened to a caress that held him as implacably as a vise, because Hook suffered that terrible side of power.

Unlike Kup. That smirk widened into something hard, and the cy-gar came up to go into the corner of the sergeant's mouth like a visual cut-off. Hook's fuel-pump sank.

"Nah, mech." A turn on a heel, and the hand slipped away slowly. "Not gonna waste my time if you're not gonna listen to instructions."

Hook _needed_ this. Needed it where the empty ache of Bonecrusher and Scrapper had become an acid burn. A whip-fast grab, and he was humiliated because he knew Kup let him seize his wrist. "Please," he grated out, turning his head to press his mouth to a palm that tasted like old metal and defeated pride. "Sir, please, I'll be good. I will. I'm obedient."

The worst part was that he _meant_it.

Kup's grin widened further. He knew by now just how hard the defeated Decepticon could be pushed. "Are you, now?" he asked, running his thumb over Hook's bottom lip. "Your stance says you are, but your face says otherwise." Kup moved the cy-gar to the other corner of his mouth. He adjusted his firm grip on Hook's chin and bent down to look into the burning crimson visor. "Convince me."

Hook bit back a snarl, fists clenching until the metal began to dent. He hated Kup and needed him at the same time. "I. **Need**. You."

Kup's thumb slid left and right, just over the soft metal of his lip. "What you need doesn't matter, Decepticon."

Hook quivered in indignation and vented loudly. "I - I -" He couldn't get it out. Begging; the thought left a sour taste on his glossa like so much copper. A familiar one, but a bad taste nonetheless.

Kup smirked, "Ya see, that's what you youngsters don't get. There ain't nothing wrong with a little humility."

Every gear ground, but Hook bent his neck. The hand on his face lingered, trailing up the side of his helm as if soaking in the concrete road-burn of pride being dragged - agonizingly slow - to death.

"Do it," he spat out, and it physically hurt to modulate his voice down. He pulled out the sound of self-assurance strand by strand until his voice tottered on nothing but past experience that meant nothing, absolutely nothing, without Kup's approval tonight. "Please. I'll do what you say. You **know **I'll do it." Because he had before, would do it again, and the other grey hand descended. Hook knew it did, because there was a whisper of smoke and chemicals, a dot of heat. He bent his head further, almost doubled over his own knees, and hung his head down nearly to Kup's feet. "Please."

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Picture 3

_by Shibara_

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There was a dot of heat. It moved. Hook couldn't stop the hitch in his ventilations anymore than he could calm the sudden racing of his fuelpump, and he needed it. Frag him, frag his boxed-up condemned gestaltmates and their prison sentences, and most of all - frag this ancient Autobot and his power games!

Kup buried his cy-gar in the gap between shoulder and collar frame, and Hook arched, uncontrolled and keening with the release of it. It whipped away every pretense of control and defeated him all over again. It put him under the Autobot's thumb. That felt like everything he needed, and admitting that, even to himself, split another hole in his fractured sense of self.

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Picture 4

_by Shibara_

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He trembled with a barely contained combination of rage and humiliation, no longer able to meet Kup's gaze: those blue optics, that smug grin. "How the mighty have fallen," he heard the sergeant taunt playfully. "What would your gestaltmates think if they saw you like this, I wonder?"

The solitary Constructicon didn't want to think about that. It was hard enough coping with it on his own. The best he could manage was to not answer and instead try to goad Kup to proceed, get him to focus elsewhere.

Hook nudged his head out, ignoring the burning in his collar frame as he sought the Autobot's hand once more. He nudged his nose against the grey metal, swallowing the heavy, sickening weight of his pride, and brushed his lips over the tips of worn fingers. He held back the nauseating and arousing feel of being dominated, because it was both something he hated and something that kept him from going insane. He vented over the joints, the wires in Kup's hand, trying to get him to give something, anything. He begged without words, his denta clenched together as he fought himself into submission.

The same way he fought Kup's domination, trying to keep himself from collapsing completely against the Autobot's pede.

Smirking, Kup ground the cy-gar into the Constructicon just a little more. "There's a good mech." He nudged his hand against Hook's mouth. "Give us a kiss then," he commanded.

Insanity felt like a box compressing his spark, but Hook knew his spark hadn't been extracted and imprisoned. Not yet. Not so long as Kup spoke for him. So long as he could still feel anything besides the prison the other Constructicons were condemned to, he was still free. So he kissed the Autobot's hand. He let the grip on the old mech's wrist go in order to take the grey hand, turn it in his hands, glare at it bitterly, but ultimately...this was the price he paid. Even as he hated and loathed the conniving 'bot, his spark flared for every command in that sneering voice. Kup knew exactly what he needed.

He needed the press of plating against his lips, the slight graininess of old plating. He needed its familiarity and the unique sensation he could clearly identify as here, _now_, his. He needed it so badly his tongue flicked out without conscious thought, and a sound of broken machinery echoed beneath his vocalizer at the taste of gun oil and ammunition. The cy-gar ground into the linkages normally hidden between his collar and shoulder, and Hook just barely managed to stifle the moan down into a soft, nearly sub-sonic whimper, because he _felt_ it.

Not his gestalt. _He_ felt it. _He_ was here.

Kup was holding him here. Hook hated hated _hated_ the Autobot, but for that, something very like love groveled at the old mech's feet.

The Constructicon pressed his lips to the back of the old clank's hand again, loathing how he savored the immediate surge of emotions he got in response. They roiled in his aching spark as he turned Kup's hand over and let his tongue flick out briefly over the grey palm before he lowered himself further. His large, bulky frame hadn't been designed to contort so low to the ground, but he forced himself. The pain and discomfort were secondary to the anger and humiliation. He brushed his nose over the knee, then forced himself down further to lip at the axle of the Autobot's ankle, nuzzling his face against the top of Kup's foot and bumping against the rubber tire.

"That's more like it," Kup purred with both voice and engine, and he reached down to smooth one hand over the ex-Decepticon's yellowish-green plating.

Hook would have liked nothing more than to drive an energon dagger through the fragger's spark, but at the same time, he relished the lack of control, the feel of those fingers just smoothing over transformation seams. They ignored the most sensitive places on purpose, infallibly deliberate. Their owner knew how to make him react.

He trembled, palms flat on the floor beside Kup's pedes. He vented in short bursts against the metal, trying and failing to stop himself now that he'd started. He huddled against the Autobot's armor and pressed kisses to dirty metal. His neck cables were tight as he held himself just so, back arching slightly into the hands sliding too-lightly down his crane arm. In a less reserved mech, or maybe just a mech less sunken in denial, that would have been body language as clear as a turbofox rolling over and offering his belly to a bigger, meaner predator. His fingers began to dig furrows into the floor as Kup looped a cluster of motion wires around one finger. A relatively gentle pull, and sound escaped Hook despite his efforts to keep his silence: not quite a moan of unwilling pleasure, not a whimper of pain or growl of hatred, but all three in a noise bitten out past unwilling lips.

Grinning, Kup dug a little deeper, pinching. "There now, was that so hard? Let's hear that again."

Hook clamped his lips together stubbornly, jaw cables twitching as the cy-gar burnt and sensors twisted just past their endurance.

Suddenly, however, the tweaking stab of sensation disappeared. The Constructicon gasped at the rush of relief, but fear swept in on the tail of the physical release. Because Kup had turned away again, and this time he wasn't coyly hesitating.

"Wait!" His voice wavered badly, and the weakness was just one more piece of his self-image hollowed out.

"Toldja I don't give orders twice," the gruff voice said, and panic clamped steel around Hook's spark until he couldn't tell - he couldn't - he didn't _feel_, and -

"I apologize!" he called in little more than a hoarse whisper, but the Autobot was already at the closet doorway. Hook scrambled to his feet as the door opened, sheer self-conscious fear erasing the deeper panic for a bare second of chill terror. No one was outside the closet door to look in and see the ex-Decepticon half on his feet, but the _risk_ of being found out! "Don't do this," he hissed between clenched teeth, daring to take two running steps to the door. "I'll do better, I - " and this is the _last_ thing he ever wanted to say, " - I swear, it won't happen again. You have my obedience, Aut - **Kup**."

The cy-gar was back between the old mech's teeth, cocked to one side. Kup cast an arrogant look over his shoulder, dragging it up the Constructicon's frame from feet to helm, and Hook froze in the doorway under that look. "Yeah? Then you'll come to my quarters tonight. Gotta real need for some personal maintenance time. **If** ya know what I mean."

Hook stared. The old Autobot sauntered away, and still he stared. He knew what Kup meant.

And he knew where he'd be tonight.


	2. This is clearly nonconsensual Except

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Artist:** _Shibara_ ( shibara-ffnet . livejournal . com )  
**Warnings: all still apply.**

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**Part Two: "This is clearly nonconsensual. Except for where it's not so clear, and getting murkier."**

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No one remarked on the burn marks that shift. Then again, Hook wasn't in the habit of letting anyone close enough to notice such things. He deliberately kept his patients at an arm's-length as a standard practice, and they were the ones he was around the most during shifts.

When Ratchet entered the medbay for the second shift, the Constructicon casually made sure there was at least one berth between them. That would have normally been enough - Ratchet had no more desire to be around him than vice versa - but this time the Autobot put his hands on the berth to confront him.

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Picture 5 _by Shibara_ (Part 2's pictures can all be found a : / / archiveofourown works/ 498584/ chapters/ 874624)

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"There's been another complaint lodged against you," the medic said bluntly. Even post-war, he was Chief Medical Officer. He held a place on the planetary Medical Board as well as headed this particular facility. Lucky him, he got to be the ex-Decepticon surgeon's supervisor.

Hook snorted contemptuously. "I haven't heard any complaints." He had...altered his berthside manner in the days since the war had ended. He'd done a lot to keep what few scraps of dignity the Autobots had allowed him, and the threat of losing his job had been held over his head since the first time his patients realized other medics were pushovers.

So. More control on acidic comments. Less pointing out the stupidity of those whose idiocy landed them in the medbay. A more 'professional' manner. _"Patience with the patients,"_ as this very Autobot medic had lectured him. The inanity of it treating every patient like some sort of special snowflake instead of the lackwits they usually were was a ridiculous waste of time and effort, but the Medical Board had demoted him once already for failing to adhere to the _"standards of care this medical facility was founded upon_."

Hook had reformed, because the alternative...

Well. No. There was no alternative, because he refused to consider that an option again. The Autobots had suspended his certification once, and he'd spent a meta-cycle working as a technician on-shift and taking remedial patient-management classes after-shift. He'd alternated between towering rage for how the Board had yanked his credentials, and acute humiliation for the course requirements he'd had to fulfill to earn them back. All the while being a nervous wreck that he wouldn't be _allowed_ to get them back, because he was an ex-Decepticon parolee, and the deck was stacked against him no matter how it was cut.

"Not from a patient," Ratchet said now, and it didn't matter how 'non-Decepticon' Hook made himself in the end. Some grudges lingered. "It's going up before the Medical Board. Again."

Something sharp and small kinked his hoses, like a knot caught in his crane line. Hoist and Grapple. Those two would never forget the Constructicons' deception, much less forgive Hook it. "My performance evaluations should say everything on that matter," the surgeon bit the words out. "I've yet to lose a patient, even after the MiddleOcry collapse."

"It's a personnel complaint," Ratchet said, and in another place, another world, the head medic might have tried to be gentle while breaking the news. "They're complaining about your hostility toward the labtechs and other non-certified personnel. They're asking for your certification to be revoked, and a temporary placement in the laboratories."

He couldn't even pretend that didn't hit home. The best he could do was hide his face by turning away, using the excuse that he needed to run the sterilizer for the end of the shift. Another demotion, another mark on his record, and this time his certification wouldn't just be suspended. The Board would take it away entirely if the complaint went through.

All he had left to protect himself was his training and talent in surgery. Decepticons with a list of war crimes the size of the Constructicons' had ended up tried and convicted, then boxed away in the Autobots' spark-prisons. Only the post-war necessity for specialized medics and Hook's own professed willingness to abide under the Autobots' parole system had spared him his own prison-box. Demote him to the point he couldn't legally practice, and he'd have nothing to protect him from that box.

Nothing, but.

"Is the Board calling for me to speak on my own behalf?" he said, keeping his voice and hands as steady as if he were operating.

"It's already been voted on and passed up to the Prime for final approval."

The Autobot's voice made it clear how the Board had decided. Only one option would need the Prime to stand judgment: the one that demoted and stripped a parolee of something official. Like a medical certification and associated work position in a facility.

Oh. Oh _frag_.

He remembered the shrieking pain and cutting numbness of death as the Constructicons shattered, a broken combiner team. The crushing weight of his two deceased gestaltmates was a terrible deadness in his spark, but worse was the shrilling terror constantly pressing on the back of his mind. The fear wasn't his own, however difficult it was to remember that sometimes, but it could very easily _become_ his. A surgeon was useless without the ability to practice legally; why would the Autobots keep a war criminal loose in the parole system if he wasn't useful?

"Thank you for informing me," he said on automatic, because the manners were code-deep. Being forced to take the slagging corrective courses had accomplished that much, at least. Ratchet muttered something from behind him and walked away, duty fulfilled.

The ex-Decepticon's mind was already reaching ahead, Ratchet forgotten. Now he knew why his parole officer had cornered him before shift. Kup monopolized his time for many reasons, but hunting down the surgeon and shoving him in the nearest storage closet had been unusual enough to put Hook off-balance. It wasn't the rusted crank's style to go looking for his parolee. If he wanted to see his charge, he let him know. Hook would drop whatever he was doing and report as ordered, because that's what an ex-'Con did when his parole officer called. Especially this specific ex-'Con when that particular parole officer called. Because - yeah.

He hadn't understood at the time what the old sergeant had wanted, why he'd demanded it there and then, and Ratchet had just informed him what his obstinacy had cost him. Now he knew, and if he hadn't been so blasted _stupid,_ he'd have done what Kup commanded. The odd location and timing of the confrontation had rattled him, but he should have just obeyed and done as he'd been ordered. If he'd suppressed his pride and begged, likely the Medical Board would have gotten a friendly reminder from everyone's favorite old sergeant that Hook had been such a good little parolee lately.

The complaint had already been voted on and gone up to the Prime, however, and Rodimus had never forgiven him for Devastator breaking open Autobot City.

Hook took the tools out of the sterilizer, and a thickness grew over his tongue. It was bitter and desperate, and swallowing it only coated his intakes and throat tubing with the vile flavor. It tasted like the words he was going to have to say. If the 'maintenance request' was still open, that was.

He'd find out soon enough. His shift would end, and he'd go back to his quarters because there was nothing else on his schedule tonight. Which was unusual, in a way. Normally, he'd be busy with a multitude of trivial tasks strictly assigned the orn before by his parole officer, but tonight was free. Free, except for the half-challenge sneered back at him. Not an order, because that would mean he _had_ to obey. No, if he went, he'd show up like the desperate petitioner he was, voluntarily going to Kup to beg favors.

With that thought preying on his mind, there was no recharge that night. None. He stayed on his pallet, not even a real recharge berth pad because he'd never gotten around to getting anything different, and he stared at the ceiling. His optics picked out each imperfection, each blemish, and catalogued them absentmindedly. He ran through his words, his plea. There was nothing he had to barter with, nothing that he had that was worth _anything_ to the Autobots besides his skills, and it seemed that those weren't enough. They were satisfactory, technically perfect, but when his patients - when his colleagues - decided to take his degradation further, they were of no help.

Because he was nothing here. Had nothing. Kup was his everything, his only defense, and he remembered the older mech's orders all too well. He pulled himself up and over to the door in a display of submission to those orders that didn't faze him in the slightest. His lot was this, and this was what he had. If he could get Kup to say something, anything to the Prime, then perhaps there would be a chance.

Not that he allowed himself to think about it. There was no logic in hope, because hope had been destroyed long ago.

His pedes shuffled him further, helm downturned, towards Kup's room. Each step was a painful reminder of what he'd lost, and what little he had now. Stopping before the door, he sent a ping out, and he hunched further as it opened. He moved soundlessly into the dark room, making himself as small as he could and still stay on his pedes. His visor searched out the barely outlined form reclining on the berth, a lit cy-gar burning white-blue to red-orange as Kup drew in on the end.

"You're late."

The words cut a line of fear through him. There was nowhere he wasn't afraid in this Primus forsaken place. It was a worn thought, and Hook just moved forward until he could kneel. The age-pale blue optics watched him, opaque and unreadable.

His hands came up to rest on the edge of the berth, right next to Kup's thigh armor. "I am...sorry."

He could live without the other Constructicons. He could. Bonecrusher and Scrapper were _gone_, and while he stubbornly refused to admit to any weakness of feeling toward their absence, he occasionally missed Scrapper's precise plans. There might have been a nostalgic fondness when he remembered how the Constructicon leader had mediated between the gestalt and the rest of the Decepticons. Perhaps he missed Bonecrusher's brutality when facing down yet another objection to his procedures or standard practices. Not often, however, and the terrible numbness of dead gestaltmates hanging off his spark was far preferable to the throbbing ache and claustrophobic fear of the living.

Mixmaster, Scavenger, and Long Haul were _not_ dead. They were condemned to prison boxes, sparks extracted and locked away, but they were not _dead_.

The Autobots thought themselves merciful, holding their trials and refusing to execute the Decepticons who'd survived the end of the war. Hook had stayed out of the boxes by that 'mercy,' but part of him couldn't escape all the same. He could survive the death of the other Constructicons, but living with the survivors would destroy him yet. He cooperated so frantically with the parole terms and the Medical Board's certification requirements and Ratchet's blasted rules of professional conduct because he'd felt exactly what the three living Constructicons had felt as their sparks were extracted. He felt what they still felt today, locked in their boxes.

The numb deadness of the deceased didn't scare him, but he was terrified of the prison-boxes. The fear deluged him through his three remaining active gestaltlinks, and he couldn't _turn them off_. He couldn't stop the assault. He was afraid all the time, because Mixmaster, Scavenger, and Long Haul's sparks never stopped screaming silently inside him. So he, too, was terrified by a box's walls and the tiny space within. But this Autobot could tear through the gestalt emotions hemming him in. Hook was even more afraid of going into a box himself, locked away where no talent or persuasive words could save him, and this Autobot was the key to that problem as well.

_If_ he could convince Kup to aid him.

He could see the old green mech looking at him, watching him. Waiting to see what Hook was going to do. Slowly, he edged a hand forward, just sliding his fingertips against the metal. Asking silently, pleading without words for what he needed. There was a pause, and a grey hand came up to brush along his helm before it pressed against the berth padding. It was the barest pressure, goading Hook by urging him move but also making him stay put. All without a verbal order.

This wasn't the first time Hook had come here to see Kup as something other than his parolee. Words were unnecessary after a while, he'd found. That didn't mean the game didn't require them to be said aloud.

Hook lowered his gaze submissively and tried to keep himself from tensing as the blue glow of Kup's optics pressed down on him. He leaned forward to nudge his nose against the very edge of one finger and asked, his voice soft and barely above a whisper in the darkened room, "What do you require of me?"

He flinched as he all but felt Kup's gaze harden. "You should know by now," the ancient Autobot almost snapped, his voice soft but no less heated.

The kneeling Constructicon nodded, acquiescing, and reached with numb fingers for the kit hidden in his plating. Kup's aged body was constantly in need of maintenance, touch-ups to parts, paint, and polish he could certainly receive elsewhere from his fellow Autobots, but why should he bother when he had an ex-Decepticon under his thumb for the menial task?

Slowly, the surgeon reached for one grey hand, one of his own fingers flipping in transformation to a screwdriver bit. A second of resistance, as if the sergeant wanted to make it crystal clear he was allowing him to do this, and then Hook was permitted to lift the hand in his own. He held the older mech's hand as reverently as he could make himself, respectful of the opportunity he'd been given. The bit fit into a screwhead, and he turned them manually rather than with the tiny motor in his digit.

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Picture 6 _by Shibara_

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"Slower, Decepticon." Kup's other hand reached out to pinch the edge of the Constructicon's red visor, and the pressure sounded warnings that scrolled over Hook's HUD.

He slowed down even more, each half turn of a screw taking nearly a quarter of a breem. The slow speed wasn't necessary. The order was meant to take a point and dig it in. Maintaining the timeworn joints and cables of this old mech was a _privilege_, and Hook wasn't allowed to forget that fact. He wasn't even allowed to look at what he was doing, barred from focusing by the hand on his face holding him steady.

Tightening the screw at last, Hook flinched as the hand he held jerked roughly from his grasp. The fingers pinching his visor tightened, setting off more warnings in his HUD.

Examining his hand, Kup frowned, then glowered down at the ex-Decepticon kneeling beside him. "The paint's scratched."

The fingers on his visor tightened just enough, and the pressure cracked the edge. Not a lot - it was armor-grade glass, peacetime or not - but enough to be noticeable, and worry stabbed Hook straight through the spark. How precisely would he explain that tomorrow?

Part of his CPU was already fabricating a story about the shoddy workmanship of the hall floors in the complex and how he'd stumbled on a loose bolt. Tripping and cracking his own visor against a doorframe would only add to his inexplicable recent history of minor, clumsy mistakes. The story should hold up under casual conversation. Most of the medical staff didn't care to ask in the first place.

The rest of Hook's CPU blanked, surprised despite himself as Kup's 'scratched' hand swung around and smacked him across the face. The cracked glass left a tiny chunk of his visor in Kup's grip, and Hook was forced to drop one hand to the floor to keep from falling.

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Picture 7 _by Shibara_

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"Sloppy," the Autobot noted, not even missing a beat as he examined his hand again.

That hit Hook right in the professional pride. A surgeon of his abilities knew to the tenth decimal point how much pressure his hands applied; there wasn't a chance in the Pit he'd scratched the old mech's paint, much less done anything could be labeled as less than perfect. The dismissive insult still stung, however. He'd thought he had nothing else for the old clank to crush into the ground, but apparently that wasn't so.

He fought back renewed rage, unable to stop a faint tremor in his shoulders when Kup flicked the shard of his visor into his face as if even the sliver of glass disgusted him. It took him a klik to find his voice again, and the way it wavered was all the more humiliating as he spoke. Not that the actual words he said were any less shameful. "I'll...do better."

He waited for Kup to lower his hand again, waited for the sergeant to grant him permission to begin work once more, this time on different digit. Worry settled into a sickening lump in his fuel tank. The promise hadn't been an empty one. He had to do better. He _had_ to perform well. With the complaint going to the Prime and demotion hanging over his head, he needed Kup's influence now more than ever. He absolutely couldn't afford to let the Autobot relic down.

But Kup didn't lower his hand again. He didn't place it back in Hook's forced-steady hand. Instead, he bent down and hooked his newly tightened digit into the malleable metal of the Constructicon's mouth. Hook jolted, startled, but did nothing more than part his lips slightly to let the green mech do what he willed. Which was to pull outward, stretching the flexible plating apart until pain bloomed from a small fissure that suddenly split the ex-Decepticon's bottom lip.

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Picture 8 _by Shibara_

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Hook's tongue flicked out to catch the drops of energon, and Kup's other hand came in lightning fast to grab it and push it out of the way. "Open."

The kneeling mech did, giving Kup access to his mouth but nearly flinching away when his teeth were tapped on. "Shame I can't just pull a few of these out, isn't it, Hook?" The old Autobot's voice couched the sinister question in a bored tone, like it was nothing more than an idle musing. Fingers scraped along his inner cheek back to the lip, and the hand holding his tongue pulled him closer, nearly nose-to-leg plating. "So much dirt, perhaps you should clean it off." The tug on his tongue was painful, but Hook shuffled closer, so close his front nearly pressed to the berth.

"I didn't say you could move, now did I?" Kup growled, abruptly releasing his grip on the surgeon's tongue to smack him to the floor again. "Get up and start with my legs." A scowl hustled the Constructicon along. "I want to see my faceplate in them when you're done, and be snappy about it!"

It was a hint in the same way a sledgehammer was subtle.

Hook got it. He knew what the Autobot expected, and deep beneath the burning indignation, a tiny light of relief glittered over his spark.

Here and now, he didn't have to be the surgeon responsible for an operation's outcome, or the ranking medic on shift. Right now, he was just someone taking orders at the age-cruel mech's feet. He didn't have to think. He didn't have to prove his superiority. He just had to obey. An emotion he couldn't, or wouldn't, name surged every time Kup put him back in his place, and in the buried part of Hook that thought about such things objectively, he named it _'gratitude.'_ Because if he was good, if he was obedient and meek and did exactly what he's told, his spark wouldn't be ripped out and incarcerated.

Servitude in exchange for life. It wasn't a bad deal. Not in comparison to some fates, anyway.

He licked his split lip and nodded silently as he righted himself, visor downcast but angled to warily watch for another slap. His tongue ran nervously over the inside of his dental molds. Kup wouldn't break out a tooth, not even to make a point. Would he? How far would the Autobot push? A crack here, a dent there...a missing segment in the back sections wouldn't be _noticeable_, not really.

Another dollop of physical fear slicked icily down his back struts, and Hook's resolve gained a dull strength as he bent to the task. His body folded over to again crouch at Kup's pedes, and his tongue came out. His helm barely moved as he licked in slow, broad strokes over dirty metal. The Pit-slagged old clank wasn't exactly filthy, but the everyday dust was densest here where the Constructicon lapped. The unpleasant taste of grit and oil lingered in his mouth as he worked, and the sensation of subjugation lasted longer yet.

It was a heavy but welcome feeling. He needed this. More than that, he...he wanted this. Wanted what Kup promised. He hated the old mech with his whole spark, but he needed this loss of control.

Hook needed the pain, the humiliation, because it was the only way he could feel anything on his own. The fear always bombarded in from his confined gestaltmates, and this was the only way things didn't seem as oppressive. As abominable as it was to bow before anyone (an _Autobot_), it was worse when he didn't. It shamed him to his very core, but each lick pressing harder to the pede as he fought his shaking.

It wasn't enthusiasm, but it was something similar, something he didn't want to recognize. He licked the tip, where the grime was thickest. He swallowed the dust because he knew it was expected, and he _wanted_ to be made to do it.

"Get on with it. You're as slow as you're sloppy."

Should the disapproval matter? It did, just as it didn't. The pain that stung him from the comment was there and welcome. It was his. His pride taking the hit. His emotion in response.

Part of him always woke to play Kup's mindfrag games because of exactly this. Because his gestaltmates' ever-present terror suppressed him the rest of the time, and the awakened part of him reveled in his moments of freedom trapped under the Autobot's foot.

His hands slid flat across the floor, daring to brush the thumbs against now-clean gray metal. "May I polish your feet?" he risked asking, not taking his mouth away from Kup's tire. He couldn't make himself attach a respectful title, not even a military one, and he knew that would get him into trouble before too long if he couldn't start forcing the 'sirs' out.

Kup flexed his foot as if inspecting it, and Hook winced when a high-pitched scratching noise accompanied the movement. Slag him, he knew better than to have said anything before finishing. He couldn't even brace himself before he got a kick to the chin. Old the Autobot might be, but he wasn't slow. Hook caught himself on an elbow before he completely sprawled, but he was still knocked sideways to the floor.

"Shoulda known better than to think you were competent enough to have some initiative," Kup scoffed, standing up, and the Constructicon looked up at him. "On your knees."

The fact that he didn't raise his voice rubbed acid into the gaping wounds piercing Hook's pride. The old sergeant didn't need to raise his voice any more than he needed handcuffs to hold the Constructicon helpless. The ex-Decepticon was going to do what he said and thank him for the privilege, if he so wished to hear it.

Hook folded his knees and swallowed down dread as creaking legs circled him. Just because he needed the game didn't mean that playing by the wretched clank's warped rules was pleasant. "Give me another chance," he said, hating the whining plea even as he hoped it'd be granted.

"You don't deserve it. Give me a reason you should get it."

Hook's mouth opened, then closed. He had no reasons. There was nothing he had to offer but his poor subservience and his medical skills. Both of which had already been offered. Both of which had been thrown to the side as insufficient.

"I don't have one," he admitted at last. It hurt to say that, but he didn't. He didn't have a reason besides wanting to live. Besides not wanting to be stuffed in a box like his teammates. He realized that shame had quieted his voice too far when the pacing didn't stop, and disgrace strangled him when he had to raise his voice and _repeat_ the blasted words. "I don't have one."

Kup looked at him appraisingly. The cy-gar reappeared in his hand, and he brought it to his mouth for a drag. "Then I suppose you're out of luck, aren't you," he commented, pulling the miniature dispenser out again and studying it nonchalantly.

The cy-gar flicked out suddenly, and Hook's head turned involuntarily to track its flight across the room. Ratchet was the medic who wrote the prescription for the chemical dosages, but Hook knew Kup's medical condition inside and out from his...in-depth knowledge of the green mech. Kup wasn't one for throwing away his medication. What..?

"Fetch, Hook." The Constructicon's cracked visor widened slightly at the order, and his head turned just as quickly toward Kup. The Autobot had turned away, however, and Hook could only watch him sit back down on the berth. Confusion held him in place.

The blue optics narrowed, amusement trickling away into irritation with every passing second. "I gave you an order, Decepticon. I expect it to be obeyed." The old mech leaned forward, resting his forearm across his knees. "Drag that worthless sack of scrapyard waste you call a body over there and fetch my cy-gar back like a good boy, and maybe I'll use you for a footrest instead of just pitching you out on your useless aft!"

Fantastic. Another of the sadistic sergeant's self-made amusements meant to demonstrate and really screw in just how far the ex-Decepticon Elite officer had fallen. Hook shifted his weight back to his pedes, moving to stand. What other choice did he have?

"No, you crawl. Face to the floor, aft in the air, and give it a little wave, like the good cyberhound you are."

He could always disobey. That was always, always an option. Kup would stop the verbal abuse and retreat to the formalities of official rank in an instant if Hook just refused to play along. They both knew it, and the option hung over the kneeling mech's head like a prison sentence, because how well had disobedience worked for him in the past? Yes, Hook could stop this at any time. But that meant Kup would _stop_.

What the lone Constructicon needed his parole officer for right now had very little to do with Kup's official function, just like his obedience to the old Autobot wasn't because he was the mech's parolee. A parole officer was under no obligation to interfere when a legitimate complaint was lodged against his charge. It might even fall within his duties to assist in the disciplinary process. This? This was strictly off the record, because they'd both get in massive amounts of trouble if this got out.

And there was also - no. How Hook felt when his pride was beaten through the floor didn't matter. Not right now, even though his spark fizzled like a lit fuse when Kup had him by the short wires and he couldn't disobey.

He slowly lowered himself, face dipping forward to graze the floor. His aft lifted into the air like a giant beacon, and he scraped over to pick up the cy-gar.

"With your teeth."

Of course. Hands were too good for an ex-'Con. He leaned down -

* * *

Picture 9 _by Shibara_

* * *

"And not the end that goes in my mouth. I wouldn't want it contaminated, after all."

Hook froze, visor flashing. This…would be painful, not that he should have expected anything else. His lips trembled as they closed around the cy-gar's smoldering end. The chemical-saturated metal instantly burnt him, melting bits of the inside of his mouth, his tongue.

He shuffled back to the berth and lifted his head, offering it to the mech sitting there just like a cyberhound playing fetch. A hand came down slowly to grasp it, dragging the burning end over his tongue and inner mouth as the Autobot took it out. The pressure left a furrow, a burn that looked like a valley in his mouth. It passed over the lips, leaving no marks, and for that, at least, Hook was grateful.

The cy-gar stayed dangerously near his lips for a long moment, and the Constructicon couldn't look away. The burn furrow in his tongue ached, and he controlled a wince when swallowing pressed it to the roof of his mouth. When the cy-gar finally lifted away, he still couldn't stop watching it. The scorched rasp of melted metal wasn't enough. He wasn't stupid; he knew to fear pain and injuries, but his gestaltlinks were active. They shrieked nonstop claustrophobic terror that lasted longer and stuck deeper than surface damage. He was a fool for even entertaining the wild wish for battle damage that'd rip through to core structure and make his spark stop cowering in his chest.

So call him a fool. Call him anything, just spare him the lock-box and powerless eternity of a prison sentence.

The half-seen motion at the edge of his vision was a blessing, however much he detested thinking of it that way, and he very nearly threw himself at Kup's free hand. Both of his own hands came up, grabbing the old grey hand and pulling it down until he could lave the palm with his burnt tongue. Two of the fingers were sucked into his mouth, and his tongue worked over the digits, dipping into the joints and sliding back and forth as he suckled on them. He sucked and licked and paid ardent, meticulous attention to first two fingers, then all five, and then the palm again.

If there was an aura of desperation hanging around his neck, he was too deeply immersed in it to care. He mouthed the join between forefinger and thumb, nipping with a forced gentleness that shivered reminders of his status down his back. Kup must be _pleased_ with him, tonight. Not merely amused or appeased. Pleased. Tomorrow, the complaint file would pass over the Prime's desk, and if Rodimus' beloved mentor didn't decide to speak...

He was one step closer to imprisonment. One step closer to that Primus-awful fear, and Hook didn't want to think about it. He kept his attention firmly on Kup, looking for any sign that his attentions were unwanted. He winced, nearly gagging when fingers suddenly dug into his injured tongue, but he continued to ply them with attention nonetheless. The fingers tasted like joint lubricant and oil, plasma and carbon. He swirled his tongue around one finger, then prodded a seam with it the next second.

Pleasing Kup was necessary to stay the Prime's judgment, but something dull and warm soothed his shivering spark the longer he licked and nuzzled. Something Hook sincerely hoped no one ever, ever discovered, and he himself tried often to forget. Noises that had no business coming out of his vocalizer threatened to come out, trying to worm their way past Kup's fingers and into the air. Surgeon's hands moved over Kup's arm, slid sensor-laden palms down his legs, looking for sensitive spots, for anything that would get a positive reaction. There _had_ to be a positive reaction.

The fingers in his mouth curled down, thumb coming up, and he found his lower jaw in a tight grip. Blue optics bored into his visor, gaze intense, and a hint of a smirk showed around that blasted cy-gar as Kup tightened his grip until there was a crack.

"What, you think that'll get you into my good graces?" The gray fingers were old but strong, and their grip was enough to cause jaw mechanisms to collapse. The Constructicon's jaw had popped a gear somewhere, which hurt but was fixable. The old Autobot didn't usually leave marks that lasted more than an orn or two, but a weaker 'bot would have winced or looked away as the pain hit. Hook just gazed up steadily, and Kup's smirk took a fierce edge. "Think I'll let you off that easy?"

Hook's palms smacked hard into the floor as the hand crushing his jaw flung him aside once more. "I don't presume to think anything," he said carefully, working his mouth and trying to pop the gear back in. "I do what I'm told. That's all."

From the silence, he'd given the right answer. Subservience wasn't always right, but with Kup, it was never wrong. He risked a look up at the older mech and caught the narrow-optic look of thought. "Autobot…Sir," he forced the term of respect out, "I follow orders. You **know** that." He was a model parolee in that way. He was also humiliated, trembling with shame and a misbegotten desire knotted into one turbulent _need_, but obedience came first in the ex-Decepticons who'd escaped the worst sentences from the war crime trials.

Kup's optics dimmed thoughtfully. Hook didn't have a clue what the time-chipped old clank was thinking behind blue glass. "Sometimes," the Autobot conceded, and some of the tension eased in Hook's chest. If Kup was willing to admit that the ex-Decepticon failed his mindgames because the games were rigged, then maybe he'd see reason.

And here was the part Hook had been dreading. Crawling about like a toy for Kup's amusement was torturous for several reasons, not all of which Hook would ever examine, but the real embarrassment was straightening himself on his knees. He trailed his hand up the Autobot's leg and opening it on the knee, the vulnerable palm a nonverbal plea. His head bowed deferentially, and he peered up from under his helm in a meek, submissive pose that his body screamed to fight. But he couldn't.

Begging for help was never easy, but the sick part that twisted his tanks was that it had almost become a ritual. A ritual of Kup's power, and an emphasis of Hook's lack. It was sick and wrong, depraved as the game they played, and the perverse thrill he felt every time they went through this was more shameful than having to do it in the first place.

"Sir, there's been a complaint," he said softly, and the words seared him worse than the cy-gar had.

There was silence at first, and his fuel tank began to churn in dread. He imagined every possible way this could go wrong, processors spinning multiple scenarios: Kup could make him explain only to deny the Constructicon his help, he could laugh in Hook's face at his misfortune, or he could simply dismiss him without hearing another word.

"And?"

The single, expectant word stirred many emotions, desperation chief among them. Suddenly, words tumbled forth before Hook could stop himself. "And I humbly request your help in making it disappear, Sir. You know what might happen if it reaches the Prime - I could lose my certification, lose my privileges, everything. Please, Sir - I...I'll do anything. You know I will."

Humiliatingly enough, his voice wavered with each word. The terror surging through his gestaltlinks had infected him, rendered him susceptible to emotional instabilities. Or maybe he was scared in his own right, but Hook's pride rebelled against admitting that the weakness was his own. He begged and rattled on, and horror grew steadily inside him as he struggled to stop himself. He had to quit before he angered the Autobot or otherwise ruined the only sliver of hope available to him!

He got his vocalizer under control after too long, and he dared not look up and meet Kup's gaze afterward, afraid of what he might see - or, worse, what he might NOT see. Even in his most unrealistic dreams, he knew better than to expect compassion or understanding or even, Primus forbid, pity from the aged Autobot. He knew no such thing would appear now no matter the spectacle Hook made of himself, no matter his clear distress and desperation. Disgust, aggravation, or even amusement were far more likely.

All he could do now was wait for the bomb to drop.

The knee his hand lightly rested on moved, and Kup maneuvered his leg around Hook's arm to prop that same leg up on the Constructicon's shoulder. Hook kept his head bowed. A talented surgeon, a member of one of the Decepticons' most dangerous combiner teams, reduced to a foot rest.

There were worse fates.

The green and grey mech leaned back on the berth, one hand going up to take his cy-gar out of his mouth. "You think I can do something 'bout that, do you?" A skeptical snort as the Autobot examined the cy-gar as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. "Dunno about that. I'm just an old sergeant with rust in my joints and more stories than abilities. Right?"

"No, Sir," Hook protested, cringing inside because _how_ had the fragging clank found him out?! Those were _his_ words, and oh, he was in trouble. "You have influence."

"And rust. Don't forget the rust."

Panic clawed at his circuits, and it was a struggle to keep his ventilations even. What was worse than knowing Kup had discovered what he'd said was hearing the words repeated that even, calm tone of voice. To hear the old sergeant speaking so casually about the slight could only mean bad things for Hook. How could he respond to that without digging himself even deeper - if that was even _possible_?

"And speaking of rust," the Autobot continued before Hook could think of a response, "I didn't give you permission to stop, did I?"

"No Sir," the Constructicon all but yelped before immediately lowering his head once more. Kup's hands were not available without reaching for them himself, which would imply he was allowed to ask for them, so Hook instead bent over toward the knee his hand was still touching. He hesitated only slightly before he flicked his tongue out to the metal. It was just as bitter-tasting as the situation itself.

Kup stayed silent for another long klik, and Hook knew it was only because the wretched Autobot enjoyed watching him fight off panic. The positioning was awkward, trying to lick Kup's knee without moving the foot off his own shoulder, but the surgeon couldn't even dream of removing that foot without permission. His mind raced, CPU whirling in a search for a solution even as his tongue dipped into the crevices to scrape over grease and dust sticking to the grease.

And, yes, some rust.

It was one thing to insult his parole officer behind his back by calling him an ancient rustbucket, but finding actual rust roused Hook's professional side from where it'd been wringing its hands helplessly, watching its license to practice slowly drag out of reach. His visor narrowed, and before he even really thought about it, he had the Autobot's foot in hand. A magnifying lens clicked out of his helm, and the crack splitting his visor became a yawning canyon. Beyond it, Kup's knee came into focus, and Hook intently looked into the joint. Flakes of rust were indeed coating one support strut beneath the main joint.

"How long has this been here? Have you gone to Ratchet?" he demanded.

An angry snarl of an engine older than his combiner team answered him, and the Constructicon glanced up, startled out of his perfectionist obsession. The fist took him full in the face. He went over backward, taken totally by surprise and unable to brace himself in time. The foot he'd been holding came down on his chest with a tortured _screel_ of denting metal, and Hook found himself staring straight up a green, half-cleaned leg at a very, very displeased Autobot.

"You come crawling to me like an overgrown scraplet, begging me to help you out of a situation you have only yourself to blame for, and **this** is what I get?" the Autobot snarled, blue optics blazing with barely contained anger. "What could possibly give me the incentive to help you now? Why shouldn't I just throw you to the Prime myself right now? It's fragging clear your presence won't be missed in the infirmary - your complete lack of expertise speaks for itself or your cert wouldn't be in jeopardy in the first place, complaint or not!"

Kup's pede ground down on his chest through the tirade, pressing in with hard surges on every syllable until Hook heard metal crumpling and denting. Until warnings flashed over his visor HUD. Pain seared through his neural net as his insides buckled in and put pressure on his spark chamber. He couldn't help but grab the Autobot's pede and push back, hands clawing for a grip. Panic lit his visor brilliant red, and he thrashed on the floor, seconds away from dying as a support strut bent, _skreel_ing toward the breaking point, because Kup wasn't relenting, wasn't letting him go.

"Please!" It gasped out of him, pleading and static-filled. His visor sizzled white, static flashing across his vision, but he still saw the older mech bite down on his cy-gar and _push_ down again on his chest. Hook's visual feed shorted out this time, and his hands scrabbled against the metal of Kup's leg. "**Please!**"

It wasn't until the pressure relented that it occurred to Hook that he should have fought. He was a seasoned Decepticon warrior. Getting pinned on his back in battle had long ago ingrained reflexes that...just hadn't surfaced. He'd been a broken support strut away from Kup extinguishing his spark, and he'd struggled on the defense instead of lashing out. He hadn't fought back?!

Stuck wondering, horrorstruck, just how much he'd changed since the war ended, Hook didn't hear the downshift in the Autobot's engine until Kup knelt at his side. "Good," the green Autobot purred, one hand descending to push into the wide dent now decorating Hook's chest. And wasn't that going to be a truckload of fun to cover up by tomorrow's shift? The old grey hand slid across the caved-in metal, settled in the bottom, and _pushed_.

The Constructicon winced, intakes catching on a groan as all the alerts came blaring back, but he managed to hold the slitted blue optics with his visor. They watched him in return, evaluating his reaction. This time, defensive protocols gave way before more aggressive offensive combat routines, but he overrode the insistent need to fight. He stayed still and submitted. Because Kup had trained him well, and he was a good toy, now.

"Very good," said his parole officer, his tormentor, his protector, his Autobot, his -

The hand let up on the pressure, and Hook rolled. "I'm sorry," he breathed against gray and green metal, and he was already lapping at the dirt. He'd been given an order and he would obey it.

* * *

Picture 10 _by Shibara_

* * *

His tongue laved the Autobot's foot thoroughly but with a desperation he didn't have before, anxious to show Kup what an obedient pet he was, what a good toy he could be if given the chance. He ignored the persistent warnings flooding his HUD and forced himself to swallow the panic stemming from his newest injury. He had no idea how he was going to explain the large dent tomorrow or if he could at all, even with all the time on Cybertron to concoct a story about it. He certainly couldn't fix it himself.

But that was not what he needed to focus on right now. His focus was on the Autobot as Hook finished licking clean one foot and moved to the other. His audios tuned to the green and grey body, listening to the sound of that old engine to see if he could determine the elder mech's mood. Was Hook proving himself? Was Kup pleased, even minutely?

"I'm sorry," he whispered against Kup's leg, over and over. "I'll do better. I'm sorry." Just wiping away the dust wasn't enough, and he sat up - just a little, keeping his head and shoulders low - to uncap a finger and venture into the joints again. "Please, I can be…more cooperative with the other medics. The labtechs. I can. I will." Tiny tools for tiny adjustments to the mechanisms concealed under armor, and Hook's concentration was total. He'd learned a 'better' berthside manner from Ratchet, but his extensive experience pampering old gears and screws came from repeated sessions just like this one.

Just like it, humiliation and fear and pain included, because he kept coming back. Hook _needed_ this as badly as he _hated _it, and -

Anyway. As a result, he knew how to please the grouchy Autobot if he could only be given half a chance.

Kup grunted and kicked him away to turn on one heel and walk across the room to the table. The ex-'Con waited, indented chest pained and an anxiety not wholly sourced from his fate crawling across his relays. He had to please this old 'bot. He had to. It was like a compulsion, and even as he felt it, Hook couldn't - or wouldn't - identify the needy urge thrumming deeper than any worry about the complaint going to Rodimus Prime.

Ancient cables creaked as Kup pulled out a chair and sat in it. The Constructicon watched him, and he wanted to ask if he might approach, if he'd been allowed to service the ugly fragger, but the words that tried to push out of his vocalizer weren't words he ever wanted to say. He refused to acknowledge them, blanking them from his mind even as they simmered in the burn mark on his tongue. He deleted and deleted, until only the edited version emerged.

"Sir, may I continue?" he asked humbly, and stomped firmly on the part of him that was vastly disappointed.

He didn't dare move, his body held taunt with tension and fear as he waited what seemed like an eternity for acknowledgment. He dared not even look to the side to get a better view of Kup's position. He couldn't determine what the aged mech was thinking or feeling, the soft purr of his engine unreadable now. He felt ill with worry, his own engine coughing quietly in stressed sputters, but he didn't press the question. He just waited patiently.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Kup acknowledged him with a short, affirmative noise. The noise was a further slap to his dignity; he wasn't even worth a simple "yes" spoken aloud now. But still, Hook had been given permission, so he moved to obey, crawling on the floor to the Autobot's feet so he could continue the maintenance he'd started.

And so it went: murmured apologies as the Constructicon tensely serviced the canny old sadist who held his career, and ultimately his spark, in his hands. Kup read from a file, seeming to ignore the constant pangs of busywork as exaggeratedly gentle fingers smoothed and tweaked and tightened. Hook cautiously coaxed one hand, then the other away from the file, half-wincing the whole while as he waited for a blow that didn't come. Every tended joint and armor plate received its due in caresses and a final, worshipful kiss of gratitude before he moved on to the next task.

His words shifted slowly to flattery, trying to repair the massive disrespect he'd been caught out on. It was a privilege, such a privilege, to serve this way. He was grateful. He appreciated everything Kup did for him. He thanked the Autobot for allowing him this privilege, and apologized over and over for disturbing him. Hook regretted his actions. It was his fault. He'd do better in the future if only given the opportunity, he would be so grateful if given the opportunity. His voice was so low it was nearly inaudible as it endlessly recited a litany of self-abasement, apologies, promises of improvement and cooperation, and praise for Kup himself.

When there was no more maintenance he could attend to without asking the other mech to rise, Hook gathered as many pieces of his scattered toolkit as he could and put it away. From another compartment, he drew out a tiny polishing cloth. It was meant for spot-polishing, but now it served a broader purpose. He started as high as he dared, reaching up to polish the age-dulled shoulders and working his way across the Autobot's chest to shine the glass. The wary glances he gave Kup as he worked revealed nothing more than a faint frown that seemed to be directed at the file, not at the ex-Decepticon attempting to polish old armor to a high gloss not seen on it for entire geological eras.

By the time he reached Kup's feet, the steady purr of an engine and stable inhale/exhale ventilation rhythm had convinced the Constructicon that Kup had fallen into recharge. And why not? Hook had just treated him to an in-depth maintenance service professional technicians would charge top fees for. More than that, the Autobot was slouched back comfortably on his chair with one leg once again propped on his very own ex-Decepticon footrest.

Hook sighed air through his systems as he took one last swipe across the foot he'd been working on, but then he flinched as it drew slowly up to cross over its fellow foot on the Constructicon's back. Apparently Kup wasn't as asleep as he appeared. Hook flicked an uneasy look upward, but the blue optics were dark, and the hands that could so easily turn cruel were slack. So much for his vague plan of slipping free and quietly retreating from the room to go do his best to minimize tonight's visible marks. Of which there were plenty.

There was little he could do but put his hands on the floor in front of his knees and endure.


	3. Coercion or desire gestalts and games

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warning: all still apply**

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**Part Three: "Coercion or actual desire - a study in broken gestalts and gaming techniques."**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Hook was beside himself, trembling with nerves and nearly nauseous with dread. He worked, silent and shaking, in Kup's quarters and had been for most of the orn.

When Kup awoke at the beginning of the duty cycle, the old Autobot had simply ordered Hook to _"stay there and clean up."_ There was no word about the complaint, no word about the night before, and no hint as to his standing with the elder mech. Nothing. Just a degrading order tossed over one shoulder, and the dismissive turn of the head that said better than words that the ex-'Con had been crossed out of the Autobot's thoughts.

He hadn't dared say anything before Kup left. Guaranteed way to rile the old mech was to press him for information. It wasn't the Constructicon's place to do more than gratefully accept what was tossed to the floor for him to have, and that included vital information about his own future.

So he did as he was told like a good pet. He'd used the room's attached washrack, scrubbing himself down and polishing his plating to a glossy shine before starting that same level of cleaning on the furthest corner of the 'rack. He'd wiped down the walls and worked downward, cleaning from that point out until the 'rack and the room were spotless. It was yet another blow to his pride - he was an accomplished physician, not a janitor - but he couldn't argue the order. To even consider it was to tempt fate, and Hook simply could not afford to take any more risks.

He cleaned, he organized, he buffed the metallic surfaces, and then he repeated until there was absolutely nothing left to do, and even then, he went over some sections yet again to ensure the job was thorough. He wasn't sure when Kup would return, but he knew he could not be caught doing nothing no matter the fact that there was nothing _left_ to do. Sometimes, he thought the ancient clank had invisible spies to report when his orders weren't carried out, because Hook had learned the hard way that Kup always, always knew when he'd been disobeyed.

And Primus help him if Hook tried to lie about it afterward. He'd spent two orns icily ignored by his parole officer until he finally broke down and confessed, last time. Two orns without Kup smacking him upside the head sounded great in theory, but not when Ratchet dragged him aside for a withering lecture on professional conduct and how badly his version of it was going to reflect on his next performance review. The surgeon hadn't even realized he'd been venting his stress on his colleagues. They were all a bunch of incompetent oafs compared to him, yes, but he was vaguely aware that he lacked a 'normal' meter for measuring others' abilities.

Interpersonal relations were not something he had a knack for. Scrapper had been the one who'd - but Scrapper was dead, and Hook was on his own. That humiliating demotion handed down by the Medical Board had alerted his parole officer to his, er, failure in regulating his attitude, however, and Kup had taken over. It'd been something of a relief. Hook just…lacked the ability to care about other mechs. The other Constructicons had always been there to run interference for his inherent selfish arrogant, but now they were gone, and Hook had floundered until Kup took him in hand.

The cranky old clank's version was less mediation than booting him by force through dealing politely with Autobot coworkers. It got the job done, for the most part, but Hook fell back into old habits the klik the kicking stopped. That reliance had led to Ratchet nearly writing him up on report for disrespect, because two orns of being ignored by Kup was two orns of nonstop stress. Hook had very nearly dug himself into a hole he couldn't escape from in those two orns.

Fortunately, he'd realized how badly he was screwing himself over before Ratchet had needed to carry through on his threat. His pride had wailed protest the whole time, but the Constructicon had humbly begged Kup's pardon for lying. Wounded pride was better than the alternatives. Getting smacked around was better than a demotion, and far, far better than a prison spark-box.

It also hadn't been pleasant waiting for the old mech to explode in his face, either. Hook had spent those two orns paranoid and twitchy, trying to act normal but mincing around his parole officer like the sergeant was a ticking time bomb. On the outside, he'd been acidic comments and cool superiority. Internally, he'd been a mess. He'd felt like his spark was squishing under a giant weight of terror. The constant influx of outside emotion from his gestaltlinks had seemed to swell, overwhelming him until he'd spent breems staring blankly into space as unseen, unheard static had flushed nonsense data across his processors. His attention span had gone straight to the Pit, and he'd felt odd. Inexplicably pressured and spaced-out, but also almost - guilty.

Decepticons didn't feel _guilty_. Neither did Constructicons, even ones who were ex-Decepticons.

These days, Hook _did_ painstakingly tell the truth, at least to his parole officer, and obeyed orders to the letter. It didn't feel very Decepticon, but it was preferable to whatever it was he felt otherwise.

Hence the reason that it was near the end of the duty cycle and he was still on his hands and knees buffing at a scuff mark in the floor. He was not entirely sure he wasn't hallucinating it, at this point. His energy levels were worryingly low, but he worked and waited. To stop and refuel would be to presume he was allowed to deviate from Kup's orders.

It wasn't the first time he'd been left alone in the old mech's quarters. The sergeant seemed to enjoy leaving his toy to police his own behavior, and to be honest, Hook was probably a worse taskmaster than Kup at his most disapproving. Perfectionism was a bitter glitch to have when it was bent on mundane filework, janitorial tasks, and small bits of manual labor. Like when he went into an operation, the Constructicon had difficulty stopping himself before a task was completely finished, even if the task was humiliatingly inane. The scuff mark on the floor bothered him so much because he literally couldn't leave it alone until it was gone. If it was even there.

That didn't stop him from snapping to his feet and standing at attention in the center of the room when he heard the familiar bleep of the door's access panel. He stood, he shook, and he swallowed the sinking feeling of failure when the door opened. It was one scuff mark. Surely Kup wouldn't notice one small mark when the rest of the room practically gleamed.

…or it would stand out even more.

He had to please the old Autobot. He _had_ to. But it might be too late already. He'd hastily pinged a rescheduling request to the medbay this morning, obedient to Kup's implacable order, and no one had sent a query back in return. That meant either his duty shift had been moved as requested, or he'd been taken off the infirmary roster altogether. Had the Prime already passed judgment?

Kup had said _nothing _about speaking to the Prime this morning, and Rodimus' distaste for the Constructicons was no secret. Optimus Prime had always been scrupulously impartial when acting as a judge. Rodimus Prime? Not so much. Not after Devastator's indirect participation in killing Optimus, something that Hook had never thought he'd regret. Never thought, that was, until the numbness, the fear, the claustrophobia, and the knowledge that he was one violated parole stipulation from a box of his own.

He stood, and he shook, and when Kup entered, Hook only waited until the door closed before throwing himself to his knees, at the old mech's mercy. Age-pale optics swept over the room, scrutinizing every micron of the area. The ex-Decepticon watched with growing apprehension but stayed down, hands shaking slightly against his thighs. The Autobot's expression was unreadable, and the silence was unbearable. The polishing cloth, barely held in the Constructicon's limp fingers, trembled with the rest of him as he stayed silent and obedient, awaiting the verdict on his work.

Kup merely made a soft _'hn'_ and started over to his chair without a word. Another weight lodged in Hook's already heavy and churning fuel tank, ratcheting his nausea up another notch. His fuel was down to dregs, but a sludge of dread had made that remaining fuel into molten lead. He had no idea if Kup approved, if he disapproved, what sort of mood he was in, or what was in store for him tonight. It was maddening, but under the anger slicked a thick layer of fear.

Once the Autobot was comfortable in the chair, Hook decided to test the waters by kneeling once more before the aged mech and holding out a hand toward a grey foot to request permission. The old officer's joints always needed tightening even from peaceful joors filled with menial tasks; the housings were all but stripped, so tightened screws and bolts did not stay tightened. The Constructicon's vision swam in front of him from a combination of nervousness, dread, and nausea from low energy. His fuel level were dropping to dangerous levels, but he waited for permission, for acknowledgment - for _something_. He didn't look at Kup's face, knowing the Autobot would move the targeted foot closer to him if he had permission.

That's how the game was played, here in this room, and he would abide by the unspoken rules until told differently. Sick and twisted as it was, there was a kind of comfort in being wrapped around this fragger's finger. At least he knew whose hand held his fate, then.

It was because of his refusal to look up that he missed the scowl cross Kup's face. It caught him by surprise when the Autobot suddenly turned in his seat to throw open a cabinet within reach of the desk.

"Pathetic," Kup grumbled as he grabbed a small cube of standard ration-grade energon from the cabinet with one hand. With the other, he abruptly grabbed the back of Hook's helm under the cowl and roughly jerked it back to force the Constructicon to look up. The ex-'Con bit back a startled noise as it escaped his vocalizer at the same time Kup snapped, "Open up."

Hook opened his mouth intending to question what he had done wrong when he found the corner of the cube shoved into it. He choked slightly when the contents began to spill into his mouth, but he started swallowing as fast as he could, gulping down the fuel as it was unceremoniously poured down his throat. His neck linkages shifted, tubes expanding painfully as his intakes struggled to pass the energon down as quickly as possible.

He didn't _dare_ let one drop spill. It would not only ignite Kup's rage simply for him being messy, it would also imply the Autobot's gesture was unappreciated. The Constructicon supposed his fuel levels were low enough to actually be noticeable, which was worrying in itself, but he tried not to dwell on it. The fuel being forced into him would rectify that swiftly. He also tried not to think about what level this mech had reduced him to, that he couldn't be handed a cube to fuel himself. Kup liked him powerless; that wasn't news.

Hook gasped and coughed when the empty cube was pulled away from his lips, taking deep ventilations to regulate his temperature now that he could. His chin was caught again, and disapproving blue optics studied him from so close the crack in Hook's visor reflected phantom-Kups in an mirror effect. It really did nothing good for the Constructicon's shattered nerves. Having one grouchy old mech glare at him that way was stressful enough.

Apparently, one cube wasn't sufficient. Hook swallowed to loosen his overworked intake valves as the Autobot let him go to turn and pull out another. He couldn't tell if the rusted old relic was being generous or sadistic. His vote was for sadistic, especially when this cube wasn't just poured down his throat. Oh no, force-feeding would be too straightforward now that he could see it coming.

Instead, the cube was set on the edge of the table before being deliberately tipped over. Energon flooded in a sudden cascade over the table edge, splashing down over Kup's lap. Pink fuel raced in runnels down green and grey legs, headed for the newly-cleaned floors, and Hook hesitated for a critical instant.

"I told you to clean this room up," that gruff voice said, and the Constructicon immediately ducked down as a surge of fear shocked his systems.

The idea of getting a vac-rag to clean the spill up didn't so much as cross his mind. He knew what Kup wanted, and he automatically obeyed the implied order. At some point, lapping energon off the floor had ceased to faze him. The task was relatively easy, although his spark cringed in his chest even to think that. How well-trained he was. What a good pet. And he did need the fuel, no denying that. The fact that it was taken off the floor was a trivial fact. Maybe this was generosity after all.

He finished with the floor and started catching the drips as they came down green legs. He hadn't been given permission, but if he phrased this just right, maybe. Maybe. It was about playing by the old crank's ever-changing rules, but Hook had enough experience to anticipate how the mindfrag worked. Sometimes, anyway.

"Sir," he said huskily between drips, "I seem to have…spilt my ration on you. Please, allow me to clean up my mess."

There was an agonizingly long silence. At last, Kup sat back with a _'hurumph_.' "Clumsy of you."

"Terribly so," the surgeon agreed quietly, stuffing his innate perfectionism down to stew in damaged pride. His superior abilities gave him precision and accuracy no other Cybertronian could hope to match, and he'd never spill something he didn't intend to. They both knew that. "Won't happen again, Sir." Not that he could really promise that since it hadn't been his fault, but taking the blame was his place. His place in Kup's game was accepting whatever he was accused of, and that was that.

"Better not." Grey fingers tapped on one thigh. Hook watched them covertly and dipped his head to catch another droplet of energon as it fell. "Fine. Do it."

His vents stuttered, and a shy bloom of heat flushed through his lines as his engine audibly picked up. Coolant and shame chased through him immediately after to chill it. It was permission. He shouldn't _want_ to - no. He wasn't going to think about that right now. It wasn't important.

His glossa flickering out to lick a rivulet of energon that streamed from knee to pede. He took his time to make sure that he collected each and every drop. Kup would be sticky, but in the end he might be allowed to help wash the Autobot to take care of that as well. A (very small) part of him looked forward to that. His glossa dipped into seams, trailing over the many cables and wires that ran through them. The energon there was thickened with dust, but he didn't care. Couldn't care. His hands tightened by his sides, aching to reach out and grasp the green leg, to turn it so he could easily lap up the energon. He hadn't been given permission, but the ache, the need was there just the same.

It was a familiar pull, this need to please Kup. It was stronger tonight because of the judgment hanging over his helm, but Hook had to make himself as useful. His spark throbbed in his chest, stoked by the desire to be as _needed_ as he could be.

His mouth moved upwards, over a grey thigh. He sucked at the small pools of energon that rested in the slight dents. His glossa was ever vigilant in its task of cleaning, of collecting. Shuffling forward, just a bit, he sucked a long line of fuel that rested on the lip of Kup's pelvic plate. He was meticulous, licking every last drop from the Autobot's frame, the chair, and then moving on to the table to lick it clean as well. He didn't reach up to right the spilled cube; that would imply it was his, and it wasn't. It was still Kup's cube from Kup's stores housed in Kup's cabinet. Hook had been allowed to have the fuel inside, but the _cube_ was still Kup's.

Once every last sliver of pink was gone from everywhere he could reach, Hook sat back on his tires with his hands folded in his lap and awaited further instruction. He kept his gaze lowered, staring at Kup's knees. His vision was no longer swimming, and his HUD was free of warning signs. His fuel gauge told him his levels were now forty-five percent and rising as he processed the energon. Still, his tank churned with worry and tension. Kup's silence threatened to ruin him, and the longer it drew out, the bleaker Hook saw his fate.

Was the sadistic old relic extending this in order to get as much humiliation in as possible before the Constructicon was to be boxed away? Was that it? Had he not approached the Prime, and now Hook's remaining kliks free were numbered?

Hook's spark dropped in despair, and he couldn't stop a minute tremble that started in his shoulders and spread outward to the rest of his body.

Eventually, he had to say something. Not controlling his fate was, by now, a familiar weight. He could distinctly remember every time he'd stood before his parole officer, not knowing if he'd be reprimanded officially or spared. So far, he'd been spared. That decision had been up to Kup, however, and Hook hadn't had a choice in how the old mech decided. He could beg, he could grovel, but it was ultimately up to the ancient sergeant what the lone Constructicon would do.

Having the decision passed up to the Prime made the weight heavier. It took the decision out of even Kup's hands, and it wasn't just powerlessness that tormented Hook now. Ignorance was not bliss, not now. Not _knowing_ his fate was a far harder burden to bear.

There was one thing left he could do. He didn't want to do it, but he wanted even less to have his spark ripped out and boxed up. There was one thing he could do to hopefully prevent that fate, if he just had the ball-bearings to do it. While his pride had been crushed to the point where calling an Autobot 'sir' no longer stung horribly, now he fought to take that one wrenching step further. It was a formality. It was calling this game what it was, and the fresh fuel in his tanks curdled sour as he pummeled his independence down. Pride wouldn't matter if he were boxed away.

It was a new humiliation to scorch his scraps of self-worth with, and more painful for the fact that he turned the brand on himself.

But.

He knew, in a vague and uneasy way, what Kup liked to hear and see. He knew what the Autobot wanted from his toy Decepticon and their play. Hook knew as well, however much he loathed admitting it to himself, that there was a perverse side-benefit he'd get from surrendering to this Autobot. The melting relief he felt when Kup had him at his feet during their private games made him give in every time. Even if he hated to so much as think about it.

It wasn't why he was fighting himself at the moment, in any case. Right here and now, bowing to Kup's will would render him protection more precious than medical supplies had been during the war. The crotchety old mech's favor was fickle on a good day, but his assumption of control had never wavered. He'd set up shop in Hook's life as the absolute authority, simple as walking into his prison cell after the trials and declaring, "You're mine."

At the time, Hook had thought he'd been referring to being assigned the ex-'Con as a parolee. Gradually, Kup had pushed that claim further. Just as gradually, the Constructicon had let him. Hook had rarely - grumbling and complaining the whole way because he didn't want this, couldn't want this, Primus help him, some part of him _needed_ this - outright invited him to push harder, or given way more quickly before each push.

Why would he have allowed things to have gotten this far? Nobody could possibly want to be a pet or a toy, right? Except that being such implied ownership, and ownership carried with it a certain form of agreement: protection in return for submission. Responsibility in return for obedience. Ownership just required surrendering any pretense of independence.

The bargain could save him, if Hook could just clear his fuel pump out of his throat and say the fragging words. Admitting he belonged to anyone, particularly this mech, didn't go down easily. It took a level of humility only a patient game player could have broken him down to, one defeat after another with never a victory to break the downward trend.

It disgusted him that he could recognize and detachedly admire what Kup had done to him, so patiently pushing his boundaries for vorns. Under every mindgame and cycle of abuse, this had been waiting: ownership and surrender, openly acknowledged.

"Master," he forced out, and his voice sounded too loud in the silent room, "please let me serve you."

He didn't dare look up, shame and fear keeping his visor downcast. He just kept his helm downturned. The trembling becoming more and more pronounced as the kliks passed. Kup did nothing, said nothing; there was no movement from him at all, and it curled Hook's fingers. Had he miscalculated? He couldn't have, there wasn't anything he had left to give, yet still the older Autobot did nothing. _Nothing_. Just sat there and let him marinate in helplessness and need.

When the Constructicon's trembling was strong enough that it rattled his plating despite his attempts to keep it quiet, a hand finally came down and grasped his injured jaw, rather gently compared to before.

"I thought you'd never ask."

The words caught in his processor, and all at once he had to stop himself from crying out from a sense of twisted joy. There was nothing about this that should have made him happy, but those words coming from his owner, no, his Master, lifted him in a way he just couldn't process.

Hook stayed perfectly still as grey fingers trailed over his jaw. A thumb brushed over his slightly parted lips, and he tensed slightly. He expected when the Autobot's thumb pushed past his lips for it to hook cruelly into his mouth again. Instead of jerking him or prodding the burns in Hook's mouth, burns throbbing anew from the forced feeding, Kup instead gave him a slight, almost coaxing tug. It drew him closer. Another tug, another inch forward, until Kup let go of him and pressed his palm against the top of Hook's helm.

Realization dawned and humiliation burned, but Hook got the message and rested his chin in Kup's lap, letting the Autobot stroke his helm like the glorified pet he was.

And stroke him the Autobot did. Not gently. Not like he might break under Kup's hands. One old hand pet over his head and down to his neck and shoulders just like he were a cyberhound. The strokes were firm, catching slightly on the metal of his helm cowl and in the twist of his neck linkages. Over and over again, the hand returned to the top of his helm and stroked down. Fingers traced the edges of his cowl like a kennelmaster checking his charges' audios for parasitic nannite colonies, roughly rubbed under the edge of his helm, and broke the rhythm every few strokes to pat him. The petting was strong enough to rock Hook on his knees, but the constant pressure was oddly soothing.

Just like a cyberhound, Hook found himself lulled into relaxation by the repetition. His neck cabling unkinked, pulled straight as his shoulders slowly eased down, and he shivered as it hit him what that strange flare of joy had been: safety. For the first time since Scrapper had gotten his fool head blown off and sent the rest of the Constructicons into the concussed, gestalt-stunned statis that'd lead to the Autobots capturing them, Hook felt _safe_.

He'd always grasped after control. He needed it. He was a surgeon, a perfectionist, and far above to the dullards who surrounded him. He had never faced a time where he couldn't seize some form of power, even if the total control had only been over a patient.

Head in an Autobot's lap and petted into complacency, he had no choice but to admit he had none. Moreover, what he could have potentially chased after was surrendered to this mech, who now owned him as completely as a cyberhound. This old crank had him physically and mentally bound, brought to heel like the Constructicon wore an actual collar and leash. He'd been tamed to hand. Kup could put a collar on him and parade him through the halls, and while Hook would beg to be spared that embarrassment, he'd submit to it if his…owner…insisted.

The joy was there because Kup's ownership seeped through gestalt-memories and their every-present terror like a wash of scouring fluid. Submitting like this, head down and almost pushing into the hands running over it, had an almost physical affect on the pressure compressing his gestaltlinked spark. It leeched away some of the intensity. The fear was still there - so long as his team remained in the prison, it would never leave - but Hook _felt_. He felt something that was his alone, and this deep and shivery sensation in his fuel tank came from recognizing it.

He shut off his visor, pressing it against the inside of his Master's leg, and let himself, just for a moment, feel protected.


	4. NonDubDenial?

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warning: all still apply**

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**[* * * * *]**

**Part Four: "Nonconsensual, dubious consent, or consent play in denial?"**

**[* * * * *]**

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Kup was speaking, he realized through the oddly hypnotized daze he'd fallen into.

" - about the complaint. Grapple and Hoist aren't ever going to let that grudge go, eh? Went and sat down with 'em, talked about what the problem really is. You got real ego issues. That pedestal you've put yourself on, Decepticon? War's over. You lost. 'Bout time you scrap the Better-Than-Thou attitude before I gag you." A stern tap to the back of his helm, and when had Hook's hands come up to desperately hold onto the old Autobot's knees like that? "Which I will, don't think I won't. Next time one of the non-certified labtechs catches any flak from you, I'll hear about it. Don't even think you can hide something like that from a rusty-jointed tale-teller like me." He flinched, regretting his words all over again as they were repeated back at him coated in caustic warning. "Your mouth starts to run away with you, you just stop and think about me coming down there with a gag and putting it on you right then and there."

Kup leaned back in his chair and sighed air out his vents, and Hook unconsciously scooted forward to follow. "And another thing. Next shift, you write an apology to the entire lab crew. Nice and formal, and you deliver it in person." The Constructicon looked up, denial and horror fighting for room on his face, but he quickly looked down again when the Autobot frowned. "You want to hear what Roddy's decision originally was, or you wanna do what I say and get off with a warning? It could be worse, y'know."

"I know," he whispered. Oh, he knew. The thought of apologizing to anyone, for any_thing_, was yet another humiliation atop countless other humiliations. Decepticons apologized to _no one_ for _no reason_. Decepticons did what they wished, and slag the consequences.

But times had changed. Nothing was the same anymore, and his pride aside, Hook knew he couldn't afford to keep thinking like a Decepticon. If...if an apology to inferiors was what it took to keep himself free and alive, he would choke down his pride and do it. When it came down to it, he really had no other choice.

"Yes Sir. I'll do it."

"Don't know if I rightly believe you." He looked up uneasily, and Kup's squinted-optics look of skepticism was enough to make Hook squirm slightly in discomfort. "Maybe you should compose it now, where I can hear you." The hand that'd been petting him settled on the top of the Constructicon's helm, pushing him back to sit on his tires before his owner and personal judge.

As if writing and presenting an apology to a lowly bunch of _labtechs_wasn't bad enough? Pride burnt like magnesium at the bottom of his tanks, and Hook had to forcefully tamp down the acidic sear. "As...you wish," he got out, looking away from the watching optics, and the self-control that took was only a taste of the willpower he'd need.

Words, words, words. His mind cast back, flipping through his formalities files in a search for a blank template. There must be one. He'd filled out dozens of specialized resumes and applications in the search for a job worthy of him after graduation and practicum. Every graduate relied on the blank templates. He'd downloaded a document-pak, and Hook was a bit of a packrat. They were likely still stored somewhere in his files, war or not. Of course the file templates had required extensive rewrites - _none _of them had sufficiently conveyed his talents - but he'd stored them in his archives because one never knew when a blank would come in handy.

He had to have something. For all his many talents, Hook had no idea how to start a formal apology. A sincere-sounding one, in any case. He could have apologized with enough vitriol to peel paint if one had been demanded of him while among the Decepticons, but Kup would never accept that.

"Ah..." The sound was conversational filler. Hook hated those. Precision was everything for him, even when choosing words, but right now he really needed to stall. "Ahem. Well. Let me see."

"Well, don't take all shift about it," the sergeant grumbled. "And while you're trying to sound like a decent 'bot, those dents need to go." He pointed to Hook's chest plates. "Get up." When the kneeling mech just rebooted his audios, startled, his owner grabbed him by the neck and dragged him to his pedes. "I'm not gonna tell you again," the old clank snarled in his face, cy-gar giving every word a chemical tang. "And no using those template docs I know got handed out at those Academies like rust sticks. Those ain't worth scrap." He shook Hook by the neck to emphasize his point.

Hook couldn't quite choke back a small noise of protest as he was shaken, not sure why he was surprised Kup already knew what he had planned. His search was turning up nothing, but being caught at his deception before he even started was embarrassing. He didn't struggle as he was forced to his feet and then pulled over to the desk, going with the rough handling obediently. He couldn't admit that he didn't know how to apologize, especially not to _Kup_. The old relic would just use that as an excuse to degrade him even further, cultural differences or no. If he just had a few kliks to _think_...

"Wh-Who all is it going to?" Hook asked to buy himself some time. The stutter enraged him, but he couldn't help it when Kup jerked him down onto the desk. Sounding like a fool was no less undignified, but he would rather feign ignorance as to the recipients of the apology than admit true ignorance regarding the apology itself. "I - I don't remember which labtechs were present."

The rusted clank growled in annoyance and muttered his frustration as he shoved his toy face-down on the desktop. "I know your memory is better than that," he snapped. "Don't lie to me, and quit wasting my time."

The Constructicon flinched, his chest scraping over the desk and vocalizer vibrating in his throat. "I-I-"

A hand slammed down on the pitted metal, and Hook tried his best not to cower back from the gray metal fingers now microinches from his visor. "I'll give you one more chance. One. You don't get anything more than that."

The mere idea burned. It burned so much that it made his tanks feel like they were being eaten through by acid. He'd never _apologized_ like this before. _Never_to inferiors. Without a template, anything he said would let the old 'bot know it, too.

He nodded into the desktop anyway. It wasn't his place to protest. "Yes, Sir."

Kup pulled him up, arching him painfully away from the desktop. "And open up. I'm gonna make you look decent while you spit that out to me. Can't have you spewing out any of your usual mess, so you better make it good, Decepticon."

Hook opened his chestplates and found himself pushed back down to the desk. The hinges on the side of his torso creaked with the strain, but the hand on the back of his neck ruthlessly pressed him down until the hinges cracked that final _pop_of metal and opened completely. The surgeon grimaced but didn't protest. He knew his own body. The hinges could tolerate a 180 degree opening, but they weren't happy about it. It wasn't something that was supposed to happen. Repair berths had plate-cradles for when a medic had to open a patient's chest.

This was like no repair Hook had ever done, however. Opening someone's chest usually meant the repairs were being done to the inside, which meant plate-cradles and pressure gauges for dented armor. Instead, Kup had his chest plates laid flat on the desk, and - ow.

Something popped, and the ex-Decepticon rocked forward a bit as experienced hands forced another dent out. Talk about old-fashioned. Ouch. The slow build-up of pressure cupped over each indent squeezed something painful and yet strangely unnamed in him. Every _tunk _of metal forced up flat again released that pain and almost-something to jolt through Hook's systems. The half-heard, half-felt _tunk_s surged like little energy flares under his armor. His engine downshifted as he tried not to react, and his fans stalled.

And...oh.

The Constructicon's hands flattened on the desk, because he really needed to brace himself against that innocently small forward motion after every dent. With his hinges cracked and his chest all the way open like this, his systems were fully exposed. Kup hauled him back into place every time the pressure pushed him further onto the desk, and the bottom-most edge of his spark chamber was just barely rasping over the desk edge. It caught, and caught, and caught again.

He spread his hands a fraction more, trying to stop the motion. It, ah, was making it difficult to think, and he needed every bit of thought turned on his current dilemma. Not the spark chamber one. No - well, yes, but no. The apology one.

Catch. Catch.

Hook focused intently on the desk top. Apology. Yes.

Catch.

"I'm not hearing an apology being made." Kup stopped popping out dents and leaned on Hook's back plates, grinding the edge of his toy's spark chamber into the desk and making it just that much harder for Hook to think. "I thought you didn't wanna go with Roddy's original decision."

Panic lanced through the Constructicon, neatly cutting the arousal fogging his processor. "N-no, please!" He cringed at the stuttering. His vocalizer was reacting to the catching by vibrating in his throat.

"Well, I'm not gonna spend my time getting you all prettified for nothing." Kup was distinctly _not_ amused and seemed bent on letting Hook know it. "Either you start making that apology, or these dents are going back in with interest for wasting my time."

Panic warred with arousal as the larger mech tried with all his might not to squirm or pull away from the aged Autobot holding him down. Kup pressed down harder against his back. That drovd his spark chamber further against the desktop until the flat surface actually brushed the crystal cover, and the sensation made Hook's circuits tingle. The whole mess clouded his mind, and suddenly having a time limit certainly didn't help. Thinking was difficult enough already without a looming punishment clouding his mind even further.

He stammered an apology to the old sergeant, hoping he could get Kup to let up on the pressure enough for him to get his thoughts together once more. "I'm s-sorry, Sir - I'd never want to waste your time." He knew it sounded weak, but Primus below, if Kup would just give him _two kliks_ to _think_, he could do this. Hook _knew_ he could do this. He just needed a klik with a clear head. Please, Primus, at least grant him that!

Primus didn't answer, at least not the way Hook wanted him to. Kup pushed down, and the pressure/slide of his crystal and then chamber edge catching over the lip of the desk was agonizingly slow.

"I...I apologize, for, for - "

Slide, catch.

"For what?"

He didn't know. It was so hard to think, and surely Kup wasn't ignorant of what he was doing, he couldn't be. The old Autobot seemed to know everything else. There was no way this wasn't deliberate.

"For - "

Slide, catch.

His vents hitched, and he was caught up in the sensation for a long klik, unable to do anything through the pressure that caught his spark crystal and pressed it along the side of the desk. The hard edge was unyielding against the smooth facets, the texture of the pitted metal uneven against the perfect crystal. It was such an unexpected torture, for more reasons than one. Hook almost wished it wouldn't stop, even as he prayed for Kup to hurry and finish.

"Typically, you gotta know what you're apologizing for in order to apologize. **Try** to keep up with current events, pet."

The mockery really wasn't helping. The purr of Kup's engine oscillating against his crane arm? Even less so. It vibrated his spark chamber from behind. Primus help him because _ooooh_. The Constructicon hated when Kup got in these moods, except that he didn't. He had every reason to hate it, hate it so much, but _oh yes right there,_ and he wasn't struggling nearly as much as he could if he really wanted this to stop. His owner really enjoyed putting Hook in his place, especially when that place was gasping under him in wordless, heavy-venting desperation, and Hook didn't want to admit how much he loved being put in that place.

* * *

**Picture 11** _by Shibara_ (found on Ao3)

* * *

Did it have to be different? Through the haze of alerts popping up and the demi-pain of dents un-denting while metal rasped over and over a _very_sensitive spot, the thought fought its way into clarity. Hook begged Kup's forgiveness every other sentence, it seemed. He couldn't do anything right, in the old clank's mind, and the Constructicon was endlessly reciting words to placate and beg and soothe and appease.

Another push stropped Hook's spark chamber over the desk edge like a blade over a whetstone, and a breathy sound got out of his mouth despite himself.

The urge to apologize until the cranky sergeant grudgingly forgave him was pulling at his vocalizer, anyway. If he could apologize nice enough, just as Hook-the-toy had been trained to, then maybe the maddening glide of crystal over metal would speed up, tip him over, and let his riled systems find the overload they were building toward.

He was floundering because of who he was apologizing to, not the words themselves. The words were waiting to be said. It was simply anathema to say them to labtechs. A surgeon should never apologize to non-certified personnel. A competent surgeon needn't apologize, ever.

Hook apologized a lot. It was a fact he was ashamed of when he thought about it, but it was also a fact that saved his skidplate from prison. It wasn't something he was talented at, but he could do it if he were forced to. Which was what was happened right now, and as much as he loathed the process, an objective part of his mind couldn't deny it was necessary. Kup's methods were questionable in polite public society, but they worked here in private.

If he hadn't been broken to heel so carefully by his...Master, then the bitter words would never have passed his lips to begin with. If the riptide of claustrophobic terror of the other Constructicons wasn't constantly sucking him down, Kup would have had no leverage to break him, even with the war lost. If the Decepticons hadn't lost the war, then the lone Constructicon wouldn't have ended up under the older mech's tires in the first place.

But it had all happened, and Hook was nothing if not a realist. Accepting his lot in life humbled him to the ground, but better to know his place than wind up in a worse place yet. So he apologized.

"I ap-ologize," the stroking caused his vents to catch, making him stutter as his vocalizer shook in his throat, "for m-my rudene-ess. It was inconsider**ate**!" A groan ended the word as Kup lifted one of the Constructicon's hands off the desk, depriving him of what stability he'd managed. That lengthened each rocking motion, now scraping the desk down half his spark chamber's crystal front before catching on the end. "An-and inappropriate fo - **ah!** - for the w-workplace."

"And what're you gonna do now?" Kup smirked nastily down at the back of Hook helm and pressed down a little faster. The dents were pretty much gone. All that was left to do was have a bit of fun. His engine growled, a steady purr under the hitching howl of the construction frame's heavy-duty engine.

_Sliiide_. Catch

"I-I-I what?" Hook could barely process his shame, much less words through the pleasurable haze his processor was in. Trying to outthink the wily old Autobot wasn't going to happen.

_Sliiide._Catch.

"Your apology. You admitted you were wrong. Whatcha gonna say now?" Kup pushed down a little harder, upping the rhythm. Hook's engine sputtered weakly and screeched into a higher gear.

_Sliiiide_. **Catch**.

Random colors flashed across Hook's visor as his systems shrieked in response. His bottom lip sucked into his mouth, and his upper dental mold clamped down on it hard enough to reopen the split that Kup had put there earlier. A grunted whimper of denied release leaked out, anyway. Energy peaked, trembling on the verge of snapping his breakers and coursing free and uncontrolled through his relays, but the wonderful, terrible friction stopped. It just stopped.

The small Autobot pinned the larger, heavier Decepticon to the desk with nothing more than a hand flat on one chestplate, a light grasp on one wrist, and Hook writhed as if nailed down. His spark chamber rested on the desktop, grinding in tiny, tiny circles that were just enough to buckle his knees as the rough rub of metal-on-metal sang sweetly through his sensors. His spark fluttered, engorged with excess energy that could do nothing but cycle in jolting surges across his most sensitive wires and circuitry. Again, and _again_, the pleasure trapped and feeding on itself, driving the tender sensor nodes into a trembling frenzy as Kup nudged him forward and back in the most miniscule, torturously small movements imaginable.

"Whatever y-you want!" a hoarse voice all but cried, and Hook only realized it was his voice when the raspy pain in his throat made the words stutter. Too much pleasure flirted the zone where it became pain as release was denied. Throbbing sensors begged, shamelessly groveled, and helpless sounds of want whined out of his stressed vocalizer. He moaned and let his head fall to the desktop, because Kup did nothing more than snicker and give a slightly longer push. The catch of his spark chamber on the desk's edge wasn't quite enough. Not quite.

He bit his lip again, but the sharp spike of pain only made him buck on the desktop as it thrilled directly down and fed the whirling of his spark. His lip popped free, slick and quivering against the worn metal. He needed…he needed…against his crystal. Pressure, friction, Primus help him, he'd take the sadistic spank of Kup's fingers if that's all he could get! The Autobot had been that vicious before, sprawling him on the desk and tormenting his victim's spark chamber with hard, angry fingers until Hook had lost himself to the merciless torture and sobbed for forgiveness, absolution, mercy.

That shaking voice was back, pleading for the overload Hook so desperately needed. "A-anything! Anything, please please, t-tell me wh-what to - nn**nhhh**nn. Master!"

Kup seized the Constructicon by the back of the neck and slowed his frantic rocking against the table edge to an excruciatingly slow, thrusting glide. "An apology's useless unless you promise not to do it again," the Autobot lectured sweetly. "Say it."

"I-I-I w-w-won'tnngh do**oo** it ahhhh-agai - **_auugh!_**"

Hook screamed through overload, and Kup just watched, leaning on his crane arm and smirking. When the cries had trailed off into gasps, the old sergeant straightened up and relit his cy-gar.

"So was that as good for you as it was for me?" He smirked evilly down at his toy. "Also, that was Cybertron's poorest apology. Heard better from a youngling. Are all Decepticons this bad at apologizing?"

Hook remained slumped over the desk for a brief klik and shivered, his vents hissing as his fans roared to cool him. His vision swam in front of him, and his plating quivered, tingling where Kup had pulled out the dents in his chest. It took him another half a klik to find his voice again, and when he spoke, his vocalizer rasped, filled with static.

"Y...Yes, Sir," he croaked in answer. "To both of your questions." It was true, at least. It had been a while since his systems had last endured such a bombardment of sensation, and now that the aftershocks were fading, it left his thoughts clouded once more but in a different way: pleasantly calm and sated rather than panicked. Though he knew it wouldn't last long, he enjoyed it while he could. It almost reminded him of better times - times with his teammates when they were still alive or free.

Even after he had regained most of his composure, he remained chest-flat against the desk. After all, his...Master had not given him permission to get up yet. He would be a good pet and await instruction.

"I suppose that's something ta work on then." Kup's fingers were tracing patterns into the metal of his back with alarming energy, and Hook realized something rather important.

Kup was hot.

Not good looking, though Hook refused to even go down that road, but his core temperature was sky high and it didn't take a genius to realize what exactly had happened. Sadist on a powertrip, with a victim in hand.

Said victim's engine turned over, which was quite a feat as it was already running in high gear.

"Tell me something," Kup said before Hook could scrape up the coherency necessary to make an offer that would either earn punishment or a dearly-earned reward. "What's the name of the labtech working with you next shift?"

The surgeon frowned against the desk. A ping to the schedule got him a rating code and designation abbreviation, just as his own slot had his certification license number and abbreviation. That particular code and abbreviation brought to mind a short, wide Autobot with nervous hands who never sorted the tools into the correct order before laying them on the sidetray for surgery. That tech annoyed him every time they worked together.

He was going to have to _apologize_to that mech. Ugh.

"I don't know," Hook said without really thinking much about the question.

There was a pause. A significant one. Dread trickled down through the clearing haze as the Constructicon caught on that he'd done something wrong. Again.

"How long have you been assigned to this infirmary?" The question was nearly serene. Hook didn't dare answer, because saying aloud the exact amount of time was really only going to make Kup's point worse. "Over two vorns, am I right?"

The pause this time was expectant. The rusty fragger was taking that point and really grinding an edge on it. All the better to stick it in and _twist_, and the Constructicon's engine abruptly downshifted to a muted _putt-putt_ in anticipation of getting smacked down.

"Yes," Hook admitted quietly, unable to stop himself from stretching forward on the desk as if he could somehow sink into the metal and escape.

"Uh-huh. Tell me somethin'." Like Kup didn't already know? Hook's cracked visor shut off in anticipation of a blow that didn't need to be physical to be felt. "Has that tech been working with you the whole time?" The hand held captive in Kup's grip spasmed as the hold turned brutal.

The Constructicon had to reset his vocalizer twice. Alright, point made and, yes, it was very sharp indeed. "Yes."

"But you don't know his name?"

"…no."

"Huh. That's odd, wouldn't ya say?" The tone was mild, almost friendly, and Hook's teeth gritted as his arm was twisted up behind his back. With his chestplates spread open on the desk like this, he was physically unable to turn to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. "Maybe you should get to know the people you're working with. Every orn. Every joor." The Autobot leaned down, and something snapped in the abused shoulder. "Forget that written apology. You make your amends in person, one on one."

The old mech's body poured heat through the contact between them. The Constructicon cringed to feel it. Kup was getting off on making him squirm, and until the Autobot got his satisfaction, it was only going to continue. It'd probably get worse, in fact. If satisfying the sadistic mech were as easy as an overload, Hook would fear him less.

"In fact, you'll start right now. Since you obviously can't be bothered with learning the names of your co-workers, you'll ask someone who did." The surgeon hissed in pain when Kup dragged him upright by his twisted arm. A second later, and the Autobot let him go. Not that it was a relief; the old mech strode over to his chair and dragged it screeching to the communication console, placing it just out of screen-sight but where he'd be able to see both sides of the call. "You're gonna call Ratchet. Right now."

Kup took in a long drag on his cy-gar and blew the chemical waste-smoke out, grinning evilly at his pet ex-'Con through the astringent cloud. "You'd do good to apologize for that, too, considering he's off-shift and probably two cubes to the wind by now." He took another puff and continued almost contemplatively, "Ratchet always was a mean drunk. So you'd better make it a good one, 'cause he don't owe you cold slag." Sitting back on the chair with the air of someone settling in for some good entertainment, Kup smirked at Hook as the surgeon came to stand in front of the comm. console. "Think of it as practice."

The Constructicon stared down at the console wordlessly for a long moment. It took willpower of steel to sit down in the seat in front of it.

Kup's crossed legs were just out of touching distance to the side, and he could see the old Autobot out of the corner of his visor. The smug aura was far more visible. His heat sensors registered the spike in temperature as he slowly ended his access code and keyed in Ratchet's comm. code. Off-duty, the call went to the registered console instead of the head medic's personal commlink, and Hook's nerves frayed as the console buzzed. The console would show the caller to be one ex-Decepticon parolee Ratchet had no reason to help. Would the Autobot pick up?

Part of him hoped Ratchet wouldn't, but the rest of him truly wanted the call to go through. His…Master would come up something else instead if this particular entertainment was denied him. Only Primus knew what, and Hook really hoped it stayed that way.

Hook's vents flipped open when the screen flickered on. He hadn't even realized they'd closed.

"What?" Ratchet said from the other end of the connection, blunter than he ever was on-shift.

There was no call for politeness between them off-duty. They held no love for each other. Ratchet respected Hook for his abilities, but held him in icy contempt for the lives lost to the Decepticon's tests and tools. The Constructicons had not been idle bystanders during the war, after all, and Hook had made little secret of the fact he'd rather kill an Autobot than repair one.

At the moment, he felt rather fortunate that Ratchet didn't hold grudges nearly as long as Grapple and Hoist did. The Constructicon's nigh-desperate work in the medbay reflected how badly he wanted to stay out of the prison-boxes, and his supervisor had worked closely enough with him to pick up on that desperation. So the head medic held him in contempt, not hatred.

That didn't make it any easier to say what needed to be said, however. "I apologize for interrupting your off shift," the surgeon said flatly, voice straining to stay level as Kup's temperature ticked upward beside him. "I find that I am in need of your assistance. If you could spare a moment, would you be," he loathed having to say this, "so kind as to send me a list of all the non-certified technicians in the laboratory rotation?"

Ratchet glared through the screen, optics over-bright from high-grade like the cube he held in his hand. "And why on Cybertron would you want that?"

"I am to apologize for my rudeness towards them next shift," Hook grimaced, unable to completely hide his distaste for his task, "and I believe I've forgotten somebody's name, so it would be a very large help if you **gah**!" The yelp got out as he was knocked off the console chair by a well-placed and angry kick.

"Get up and do that again. With. No. **Lying**," Kup growled from off-screen.

"Kup? What the frag is going on?" Ratchet peered at the side of the viewer as if trying to see around it.

"I'm teaching the 'Con to apologize like a decent 'bot," his friend grumped without getting up. "Fragger can't even lie right, though. Figured it'd teach him to be less proud, the arrogant bilge pump, but he's so fraggin' **bad**at it. So." The old mech glared at Hook, grouchy and more than a bit angry. "You gonna get off the floor and do this properly without the lying? Or are you gonna waste more of me and Ratchet's time?"

The hot flush of humiliation was immediately followed by a chill avalanche of appalled helplessness. Hook's armor could barely contain the temperature change as circuitry dulled and sparkled in erratic turns, electricity skittering through his body. He stared up at the old Autobot glaring down at him, and Ratchet's merry laughter from the comm. console only chilled him further.

It was one thing to be humiliated in private with small marks and hidden servitude. That was part of their unspoken agreement about…all of this. The game and the mindfrag and everything not covered by their official role as parole officer and parolee. But Kup had just ripped open that veil of privacy in front of _Ratchet, _of all mechs. The mech was the Autobot Chief Medical Officer! Hook had to _work_with the 'bot!

He scrambled for a way to save whatever paltry scraps of dignity he had left. Professional pride was really the only bits remaining after vorns of Kup stripping away everything else, and this threatened to burn even that away. Okay. Right. So Kup had shown he pushed Hook around. Technically, that could be explained as a parole officer conveying the Prime's current ire with the ex-Decepticon. The physical abuse was a little out of line, but if Hook played it right? Maybe he could salvage this. He hoped.

"He lies just fine," Ratchet said, loose-tongued and easy now that he was amused. "You should see his reports. I've never seen such pieces of utter slag. You'd think he did all the work in the infirmary to read those!"

"Really." Hook averted his visor and carefully didn't look to see what expression Kup had at that bit of information. He just dragged himself back into the chair and stared bleakly at the Autobot he'd have to share a shift with in a joor and a half. "So apparently he's just got his joints stuck over saying words owed to the poor mechs he abuses regularly."

The Constructicon concealed a wince at Kup's sarcasm. He was - or rather, had been - a Decepticon. Of course he could lie. Under the circumstances, however, only Starscream could have managed a convincing enough lie to weasel out of Kup's wrath.

"I don't know the labtechs' names," he said without any real hope that his supervisor would care. Ratchet off-duty was a spiteful glitch, apparently. "I would appreciate your help, Ratchet. I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but I'm just doing as ordered." Oops. That...might have been too obvious a hateful dig at Kup and his precious young Prime. "I was blind and foolish to have neglected learning their designations," he added hastily, hoping self-abasement would stem retaliation for his insolence. "It's past time I remedied that oversight. Please," oh, that stung to get out, "if you could spare a moment to send me the list as a personal favor..?"

"Well, I'll be slagged! A 'Con who'll admit he's wrong without a gun pointed at his helm. Primus must be in the mood for miracles! This should be celebrated!" Ratchet laughed and took a large gulp from his cube. "What do you think, Kup? Was that a pretty enough apology?"

"It was certainly...honest." Kup narrowed his optics at Hook. "Good enough for you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Worth it for the entertainment value alone," Ratchet nearly giggled as the high-grade went straight to his processor. "Here: list of all the Medical staff. Full names, abbreviations and ID codes. I look forward to your apology, Hook. I'm sure the rest of the Medbay staff will, too, once I let 'em know it's coming. Good luck with that!" With that and a sharp laugh, the medic cut the call.

Wonderful. As if he hadn't had enough to dread about his upcoming shift, being a spectacle in front of everyone was now on the schedule. Hook forced his hands not to shake as he opened the file that'd been sent just before the comm. call ended. He carefully didn't look toward Kup.

"So. You just do as you are ordered, huh?" came the ominous comment.

"By you? Always," the Constructicon said, figuring frank honesty really was his best option. Anything else only got knotted around his neck like a noose when the cynical mech got done ripping on him.

The file opened, and the energon in his tanks turned to ice water. It must have shown in his expression, because a grey foot thumped to the floor as the old Autobot leaned forward in his chair to read the console screen.

There was a short silence broken when Kup started guffawing. "Mech's got a wicked sense of justice," he got out between mean-spirited chortles.

Hook didn't know what to say. Out of some sort of sadism, Ratchet had helpfully supplied a script for just such an occasion.

'_Hello. My name is Hook, but you can call me afthead. I'm a self-absorbed lout with a complete and total lack of both manners and common sense. Because I regard you as a greaseblotch I'm too hoighty-toighty to wipe off my foot, I have not the slightest clue what your name is. Rather than ask it myself, I thought I'd attempt going over your head first. Feel free to point and laugh at how that worked out for me. Call your friends over to share. Take a picture. Frag, get the security vid and put it on the planetary network tagged 'moron gets his come-uppance'. After you're finished letting me know exactly how little you respect me, please sit down and enjoy how I now have to beg both your name and forgiveness in one go. Be aware that you're under no obligation to forgive me, but the Prime's going to be venting down my neck for the foreseeable future if you don't. Go ahead and drag this out as long as you like. Kup will haul me back to be incompetent at this humility thing as many times as you want. Would you like to walk away now? I'm going to look utterly ridiculous chasing after you and trying to convince you I really mean these insincere words I keep mouthing. I suggest that you ignore me for a while, just to make sure you get your contempt across, because I'm too thick-helmed to understand just where I stand with you at first. Somewhere beneath your feet, I believe, but never underestimate how much my ego blinds me to the reality of my situation. Are you ready for this? I'm ready. So. What's your name?'_

"A-are you going to make me say this, this..." Hook couldn't say drivel, slag, or any other horrible word for this trash Ratchet had sent, not without punishment, so he bit back his appalled anger and finished with, "…speech?"

With a final chuckle, Kup leaned in and over the Constructicon, radiating heat again. "Why not? It's certainly honest," he replied with a grin that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Sharkicon. "And ain't that best thing for this situation?"

"Yes Sir, if you say so, Sir." The surgeon couldn't stop his panicking at the thought of actually saying all that in front of all his co-workers. "B-but please, Sir, not that speech!" Horrified at the return of his stutter, he clenched his hand on the comm. console.

"Ohh?" The ancient clank continued his Sharkicon grinning, looking ever-more malicious, as if age had wrung even the passing thought of kindness from his old metal. "I thought you **always**obeyed my orders?"

"And I do!" Hook said quickly, looking up at Kup before glancing again at the comm. screen and the script on it and away again. "But please, Sir, not this! I-I…I'm begging you!" Scrambling off the console seat and onto the floor, he knelt at his Master's feet, head bowed. If ever he'd needed the refuge of being owned, it was now. The reminder might earn him a smidgeon of mercy, and right now he'd gladly beg for that. "Please don't make me say that speech in front of everybody. I beg you, no! I'll do anything you want, Sir!"

"But you already do that, pet," came the smug reply. "What else can you offer me?"

He shut off his visor and blindly pressed it against the Autobot's knee. What else_ could_he offer? Kup had his parole, his behavior, his job, his dignity - even ownership over him. Which was all Hook could rely on for help at this point.

It was a pitiful shelter, but one Hook couldn't deny he needed. "Please," he said against his owner's leg, "Master. I'm sorry. I am. I'll apologize to the labtechs. I'll learn their names, and I'll - I'll get to know them as more than...more than..."

"Faceless, nameless disposable minions?" Kup asked sharply.

"Yes," breathed quietly, defeated, from the ex-Decepticon. "I'll do as you command, but - I - how much more must I be punished? What can I do?" He turned his head, nudging his nose against green metal in pathetic appeal. "Master, please spare me this. I'm a prisoner, not a puppet. Make me dance on your strings if it amuses you, but for the sake of the other Decepticons on parole, leave me what little status my remaining rank allows me. At least," he swallowed with some difficulty, intakes stiff with shame, "at least in public."

"Are you really trying to pull the 'for the good of all' card with me?" Kup scoffed. "Really?"

His voice stayed steady and quiet, although stopping the stutter left his insides feeling shaky as his vocalizer tried to vibrate. "I understand my position. The Prime will send me to join my gestaltmates in imprisonment if I so much as step out of line. What do the other Autobots know? All they see is how I'm treated, and they assume it can be applied to the other parolees." It was a serious point, but not one he wanted to dwell on. They both knew that this game would have serious consequences if it played out anywhere but behind closed doors. "Sir - Master - I **understand**my position." He nuzzled into his owner's knee again, thumbs rubbing small circles where his hands had risen to grip the old mech's lower leg in nonverbal appeal. This was his place. He tucked his body low and submissive at Kup's feet, trying to convey how completely he understood that fact. "What more do you want of me than my surrender?" Hook, toy and pet, pleaded to know.

If he could just get the old clank to say what he really wanted him to do, he'd do it. No questions asked. But the mindfrags never stopped, not with Kup. Not until the Constructicon was knotted into an emotional, powerless tangle of disgrace, shame, and that peculiar relief that came from giving in to someone else's control.

Hook hated Kup. He really did. He also wanted nothing more, right here and now, than to hide in the Autobot's shadow and be told what to do.

He clung to the old mech's leg and went still, awaiting judgment.


	5. Heavy chains might be necessary

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warning: all still apply**

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**Part Five: "Freedom is an opportunity to realize how heavy the chains were. And what they were there for."**

**[* * * * *]**

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Hook rubbed his face wearily and slumped into a seat near the wall. The infirmary had been inordinately busy most of the orn due to an accident in the Science Academy's chemical labs, and he and the rest of the medical staff had had their hands full with the resulting injuries. Melted plating had to be replaced, burns had to be scraped and treated against rust, wiring had to be stripped and resealed, and countless other tasks. It had seemed like there would be no end to the stream of incoming injured, but finally, the last patient had been sent away to be cleansed of chemical residue and assigned a recovery room. It gave Hook a few kliks to gather his thoughts and rest. With any luck at all, the Academy had cleaned up the mess and there would be no more patients, at least for a while.

As tiresome as the string of emergencies had been, Hook had to admit he was somewhat thankful for it. A busy orn meant a lucrative orn. He took pride in his work even when performing such minor fixes as scraping burnt paint from mechs' plating, and the number of patients had meant there'd been enough to go around for all the medics and technicians. Few of the staff had been available to double-up, so he'd rarely had the misfortune of working with someone else all orn. The less often _that_ happened, the better, as far as he was concerned. The more he could work on his own, the less likely he was to be written up and have to endure another humiliating session of _apologizing_. Plus, good work meant good reviews, and Hook knew that someone would have to take a microscope to today's repairs to find any complaints.

As such, he was surprised when he glanced up and saw Ratchet walking toward him. The head medic generally left him alone mid-shift unless there was a complaint or other issue. He stood to acknowledge the medic if only to avoid smearing what had otherwise been a very promising orn; it would _not_do to have a complaint registered after so much good work simply because he had failed to appear respectful of his supervisor. Hook opened his mouth to make a verbal acknowledgment as well once Ratchet was close enough, but the Autobot spoke before he could.

"I was going to tell you this at the start of shift, but the emergencies put that off," Ratchet said as he wiped his hands down with a cleansing cloth. "Your parole reports have been reassigned to me. Rodimus' orders."

Hook's entire field of vision skewed to the left. It re-centered, but the processor-stall behind the visual twist coughed his systems through a reset. The Constructicon jerked minutely in place as his entire body hitched in reboot.

"What?"

He was distantly surprised with how _normal_ he sounded. The question came out puzzled, but who wouldn't be puzzled? The war had been over for vorns. Hook had been released on parole since the war trials ended. In all that time, the only parole officer he'd ever been assigned under was Kup. That was somewhere between caution and pragmatism. Hook was one of the few Decepticon Elite officers who'd escaped the spark-boxes, and who better to ride herd on an ex-'Con officer than one of the wisest, wiliest Autobot sergeants around? If the ancient crankcase hadn't lived through something, he knew a story about someone who had. There wasn't anything even a presumably dangerous war criminal like a gestalt member could pull that the old green Autobot couldn't deal with.

In addition to that, it'd been made _very_clear that Hook had been spared from the spark-boxes for his surgical abilities alone. His parole confined him to a certain sector of Cybertron, and that was the sector with the main Autobot medical facilities. Kup rarely left the Prime's government seat, which was equidistant between the rebuilt Academy and the medical center. Making the surgeon his charge had been an assignment of convenience.

In the calm before the panic hit, Hook's first thought was that Kup had reneged his unofficial 'retirement' from active duty. The old sergeant might have taken his parolee's disrespect to spark and decided to go back out to do more than rely on a past reputation and eons of accumulated stories about former adventures. That would make a kind of sense, then. Hook couldn't leave his parole sector without submitted and verified permission from the system. Maybe the Constructicon had been handed off to avoid mobility complications.

Or maybe Ratchet had said something to someone about what he'd seen during that one comm. call, and this was exactly what Hook had long been afraid of.

"I've assumed responsibility for your parole," the Chief Medical Officer was saying distastefully, and static zapped from side to side across Hook's visor. The world ticked as his systems struggled. "Rodimus has decided to streamline the parole system, and since I'm already your supervisor..." The smaller mech shrugged, resigned to the logic, but his optics were narrow. That was not the look of someone who wanted responsibility for an ex-Decepticon parolee. "As far as I'm concerned, nothing changes. I see you on-shift, I get your reports for the shifts I'm not directly supervising you, and I don't hear scrap-all about you off-shift. That happens, I'm happy. You cause trouble, I'm not happy. I'm not happy, you're not happy."

The panic hit. It hit hard. Bulldozers were gentler. Hook stared like a frozen mammal dead in headlights as his supervisor-now-parole officer leaned forward. Aggression and personality made up where height and bulk fell short, and the larger Constructicon involuntarily took a step back into the wall.

"Got it?" the Autobot Chief Medical Officer said sharply.

Had Ratchet said something to Rodimus Prime about that comm. call? Kup had kicked Hook on screen, but that was hardly even a dent on what the old green mech did to him regularly. Would an objective observer have interpreted that as a parolee being abused? Ratchet had been slightly overcharged, however, and he didn't even _like_ Hook. Why would he have said anything?

Maybe something had leaked. The mindfrag twisted game was something that stayed behind closed doors, but there was always the possibility that they'd somehow given it away. The danger of exposure had always given the game an extra thrill to relish, but now…Had Kup been _removed_?

The busy medbay was no longer a haven; every labtech and nurse hunched together over a patient could be spreading gossip. Every optic in the infirmary could be covertly watching him, laughing or just plain wondering. Did they know what had happened?

Safety? Gone.

"Got it," the Constructicon's hands were shaking, but he folded his arms to hide them, "Sir. I...hope that communication between us can remain as clear as that." Because Kup's words had always held a wealth of double-meanings, and right now Hook had no idea if Ratchet was threatening him, pitying him, or simply presenting the facts.

At this point, his…previous parole officer would have revealed a clue about the real meaning of his words. Ratchet just nodded shortly and straightened back up. "Good. Maybe this will be easier than I'd hoped." A faintly puzzled note entered the Autobot's voice. "Rodimus made it sound like there might be difficulties, but Kup said you were more cooperative than that."

It was hard to focus on his new parole officer's words. Hook's head was spinning, and his vision repeatedly glitched as systems reset at random. His vents threatened to lock. Panic crushed him from the inside out, and he struggled to keep it from being obvious. What? Kup had discussed this with Ratchet? Wait, of course he had. Rodimus rarely made decisions without at least consulting Kup for his opinion, Hook knew that, and he'd been Kup's charge for almost three vorns. Ratchet would have at least spoken to Kup about it.

And that realization brought up another horrible uncertainty: what did _Kup_ think of this? Did it even matter? If the old mech was no longer his parole officer, Hook really had no reason to see him again for any reason. He wasn't sure what he thought of that, and he couldn't gather his thoughts because he couldn't _think_ at all beyond the panic, beyond denying that this was actually happening. This was just a bad defrag echo - a terrible nightmare - it _had_to be.

Except he _wasn't waking up_.

"I...try to be," the Constructicon said only so he could respond in some way rather than standing in silence, and he was fully aware of how lame he sounded. He tried to cover it up by next asking, "Is there anything I need to do...differently?" The question had _some_ legitimacy in addition to being an attempt to stall until he could think clearly again. Having never had a parole officer other than Kup, the ex-Decepticon truly was not sure if he needed to do anything in order to confirm the change, or if there was something Ratchet required specifically. Knowing the Autobots and their beloved bureaucracy, there were probably eighty-four different forms that needed to be filled out to make this official.

More frightening than an avalanche of filework was the sheer lack of information Hook had surrounding this switch. It was a tiresome new duty for his supervisor, but it could turn the Constructicon's life upside-down in a klik depending on what was required of him. Ratchet had _claimed_that nothing changed between them, but that could still mean many different things.

Kup had taken him aside and clearly laid out exactly what he thought of Hook and sundry associated responsibilities in the first orn of assuming parole officer duties. Things had changed as time passed, of course, but the surgeon had known where he'd started with Kup: on the bottom.

Ratchet just shook his head as if none of Hook's frantic thoughts had even occurred to him. "I don't think so. How did you deliver your reports to Kup? Summary transmissions at the end of the ten-orn work cycle?"

On his knees, helm bent and hands tucked behind his neck as the old Autobot snarked acid commentary on every single thing he'd reported. "Something like that."

"That'll work fine. I don't need details." The medic rocked on his heels thoughtfully. "Shift-end reports cover a lot of what parole reports do, to be honest. I can just skim summaries out of your shift reports and eliminate the work cycle reports entirely." He seemed pleased at the prospect of less work, which Hook couldn't blame him for. Ratchet headed the whole medical complex and held a spot on the Medical Board. The mech had too much on his docket to begin with. Adding parole duty was probably too much, but when the Prime said jump, it was time to fetch the trampoline.

"You don't need me to report in person?" he asked, and it was only partially to be certain. If Ratchet had been listening closely, he might have detected a strange, forlorn tone in Hook's voice.

What...what was he supposed to do? For vorns, the surgeon had reported to Kup every three orns, usually less. It was routine: a predictable part of his schedule that gave him an idea of what Kup expected of him in terms of behavior, duty, and personal service. Without that insight into his parole officer's expectations, what was Hook supposed to base his duty cycle off of? Those expectations had filled his schedule so completely that restrictions on his behavior and activities kept free time to something he only had in theory. It would have been oppressive if the consequences of making his own decisions hadn't been such a source of worry before Kup had taken over.

It'd been so long since he'd had to think for himself that the mere idea shook the Constructicon to the core.

His visor flashed around the room, and suddenly every mech there became a potential threat. They might be gossiping about him, but they were a danger to him even if they weren't. He was about as adept at reading interpersonal cues as a brick wall. He was - or _had been_- the Decepticons' lead surgeon for millions of years, but as had been very recently ground into his face, his attitude was a handicap. The other Constructicons had been a buffer zone between him and the rest of the faction, but they weren't here. Now, neither was Kup. He was on his own, and his own innate superiority prevented him from noticing or caring about the lesser beings around him.

And even as he thought that, a gruff, stern voice corrected the back of his mind: _"They're mechs, you ingrate. Start treating them like it, or I'll show **you** a 'lesser being'. I got a mirror and a working comm. console. Don't think I won't call one of your co-workers up and make you use 'em."_

Primus alive, but Hook had been humiliated to the point of illness standing in front of a bunch of _labtechs_delivering the longest, most spark-shriveling series of personalized, profound admissions of ignorance and sincere apology in his existence. Yet if Kup hadn't compromised with the Prime to give him that opportunity and then ordered him to go through with it, he'd have ended up just like his surviving gestaltmates.

Without the old clank's guidance, the infirmary was a minefield. Every nurse, labtech, and medic could blow up in the ex-Decepticon's face, and he'd never see it coming, much less know what to do afterward. He just - he didn't know how to _deal_with people!

He turned his visor back toward Ratchet, who seemed to be reorganizing duties inside his own head. "Do you want me to deliver shift-end reports in person?" he asked a little desperately.

The frown which crossed the head medic's face did not bode well. "Well, you'll already be working with me in-person anyway," the Autobot pointed out. "I don't see any reason why you should have to make a special trip." In fact, his tone of voice indicated that was likely the _last_ thing he wanted, which only cemented the sickening lump of dread in Hook's fuel tank.

His mouth almost opened to ask the Autobot to, perhaps, reconsider, but he caught it before his lips did more than work uselessly around a dead-end sentence. How precisely would he finish that request? What possible reason was there for Ratchet, who worked with him one out of every three duty shifts, to schedule a special meeting?

The only legitimate reason Hook could pull out of thin air would embarrass the hubcaps off him. He could, theoretically, explain that Kup had used the time to, ah, 'discuss' concerns and issues raised during the work cycle. It was technically true, but explaining that would expose a closer working relationship with the old clank than Hook was comfortable revealing. Primus help him if Ratchet got curious and asked what kind of things had been raised, because that could open the door to a whole realm of repercussions.

The Chief Medical Officer had already shown himself to have a nasty sense of humor when overcharged, but even when sober, he'd still made sure the rest of the medbay had been briefed. He'd been there waiting, laughing as he'd watched Hook's forced apology. There was no guarantee that Ratchet wouldn't take that wicked humor one step further as his parole officer. The surgeon couldn't imagine anything more humiliating than being dressed down for social or professional infractions right here in the medbay in front of everyone.

He also had the odd, directionless feeling that he might say too much about what else Kup had done in those meetings if Ratchet asked about it. It was no secret to this particular Autobot that Kup had nagged him, but Hook didn't quite know how he'd skirt around what else the old mech had done to him in the privacy behind closed doors. The game had been so entwined with his parole that he didn't even know how to separate what was and wasn't expected of him anymore.

The surgeon certainly wasn't about to say out loud that being reassigned to another parole officer was leaving him adrift. He hadn't quite realized how close Kup had kept him leashed until he'd been cut loose.

"We done for now?" Ratchet's tone made it quite clear that he was done with conversation even if Hook wasn't. "I would like to get back to my mid-shift break, so if you don't mind?"

"Of course, Sir." The Constructicon nodded, startled out of his thoughts. "Thank you for telling me as soon as you could."

Ratchet snorted and walked away towards his office to his datapad work and cube of energon. Leaving Hook with his thoughts awhirl, watching in his wake.

Feeling weirdly as though he were trapped in a dream, the surgeon returned to his duties. Thankfully, there were no operations scheduled. He went through the rest of the shift like a sleepwalker: competent enough but somewhat dazed by the abrupt changes. The idea of not being held responsible for everything he did, every shift he took or leisure activity afterward, left him almost unable to think more than a breem ahead.

The implications of that scrambled his processors further. Hook had always, always grasped for control. It was only in the last few orns that he'd finally come to terms with surrendering all that hard-earned control to Kup. It'd been captivity, hated submission, but safety. Now he was set free (or rejected?), and...it wasn't as easy as just walking away. It'd never been simple, and this made it more complicated yet.

The ground under the medical center hadn't ever suffered a seismic shift. That didn't stop the Constructicon from feeling like he should stagger as he left the infirmary. He felt punch-drunk with the quick changes.

He hadn't realized, hadn't so much as _thought_about just how much of his stability both on and off the job, came from knowing Kup loomed over him. He'd known exactly what kind of behavior was allowed, what phrasing was too rude, what tones were disrespectful, because the old rustbucket had pounded it into his head through humiliation and pain. He didn't remember the rough social coaching well, requiring the lessons to be taught over and over again, but he'd known that Kup would always be there to teach them. If he'd done something wrong, he could be confident that the ancient Autobot would bring him up short and smooth things over. He'd had the green mech's considerable reputation to hide behind when the Prime got in one of his moods, or when he transgressed badly enough to need to be bailed out of trouble.

Now all the decisions Kup had made in and about his life had been passed on to Ratchet, and Hook didn't have a clue what the medic's final word was. He wasn't even sure Ratchet knew that Hook relied on him to make those choices for him. How did one broach that topic, exactly?

'_Excuse me, Sir, but could you please order me to my knees while you verbally lash me into a cringing heap of shame? I have no idea what I did wrong, but I'm sure I did something and I'm sorry for it. Please let me make up for it. I'll be good. I just need to know how you define 'good' today."_

...yeah. No. Although that really brought back memories of the first deca-vorns floundering along, pulled around by Kup like a reluctantly rehabilitated junkyard cyberhound. Now the pull was gone, and without the leash, he felt lost. All that precious control he'd been steadying his gestalt-crippled spark against was gone. It'd suddenly turned out to be just an illusion built on Kup's complete dominion over him. Vorns of the old mech training him to rely on him had left him dependent.

Hook was suddenly free, but it felt like being lost.

He wandered back to his mostly unused quarters, still half in a daze, after grabbing his ration from the habitation block's common room. Where he couldn't help but suppress a twitch of paranoia as the gossips glanced at him. Did they know something that he didn't? He hated worrying about this slag! He tried to redeem his ration-chit and get out as quickly as possible every orn, but there was a special urgency this time as optics seemed to linger on him.

The room was a nothing but a gathering place for nosy mechs with too much time on their hands. He despised having to come here to retrieve his ration, but it was either redeem his ration-chit here or in the infirmary, and at least redeeming it here meant he could take it to his quarters afterward. Mingling with the medical staff in the breakroom was not his idea of fun, especially since he wasn't exactly at his best right now. In the common room, he just had to dodge that annoying red Minibot's usual attempts to trip him when he passed by the fragger's claimed table, and then he could leave.

Upon reaching his quarters, he locked the door and turned to stare at his tiny, bare quarters. They weren't much, but he wasn't here often enough to care one way or another about it. The room had been assigned to him after construction of the medical buildings had been finished, and it wasn't a bad place considering the fact that he paid no rent and hadn't had a choice about which habitation block they were in. It was sort of the rooming assignment version of the ration-grade energon he got as a parolee: functional. Not nice, but considering the alternative? He'd take the bare minimum he was granted and be grateful for it.

He was an ex-Decepticon paroled by the winning side; he was lucky the Autobots hadn't given him a curfew and assigned him a Detention Center cell half a joor commute away. Two breems' street driving or six breems' brisk walk through the connecting buildings wasn't half-bad, comparatively.

It had everything he needed for the few times he used it, anyway. It was small, but he was one mech. There was enough room for a single berth, a chair, and a desk with an inbuilt computer doubling as a communication console. They were all sprinkled with dust. There was a gearspider spinning a wire-web in the far corner. It showed the fact the Hook hadn't been in here for nearly two orns, and hadn't cleaned it in far longer. There'd never been time before, because every time his perfectionist need to tidy had popped up, a voice on his comm. frequency had demanded his attention first.

That voice no longer belonged to his parole officer. He wondered what he should do now that he didn't answer to Kup anymore.

He _could_do what he wanted now. What did he want to do?

Hook's processor blanked at that thought. He sat down hard, right there in the doorway, and vented hard through his mouth, all fans whirling hard as they tried to prevent his processor from overheating. The total, blaring alarm flooded him hot under his armor, excess electricity spitting sparks off his circuits. His engine chugged, pistons working rapidly, and he _didn't know._

On a, er, 'normal' day, Kup would have already contacted him. In fact, Hook actually had his schedule for the rest of the work cycle, but if Kup was no longer his parole officer...what was he supposed to do?

He stared at his dusty desk, half-panicked at the thought. His room was a mess that would have preyed on his obsessive-compulsive perfectionism except that his schedule meant he rarely spent time here. His time was never his own. His quarters were a place he saw in passing. By now, he should be halfway across the sector to pick up a set of decorative storage cubes from a manufacturing factory outlet. Between retrieving the set and assembling it to check that it was complete, his night had been filled. Disassembling it and repacking it into a nice gift box would take up his morning, too.

It was scutwork Kup could have done himself before giving one of his friends the gift, but why should the old mech bother? He had a Constructicon of his very own to run errands for him. Hook couldn't even say that he minded the makeshift work, really. Running errands for the rusty fragger kept him busy.

His thoughts hiccupped, anxiously waiting for reprisal. Even in his own head, he half-expected Kup to come out of nowhere to smack him for disrespect.

But there were no consequences for bad-mouthing the obsolete old relic anymore, were there? It should have been a luxury, a side-effect of freedom, but he leaned back against the door feeling as though his insides were quivering. This did not feel like freedom.

His visor turned toward the comm. set again. Did Kup still expect him to pick up the storage cubes? Should he call and find out? Maybe he should, but some part of him cowered at what the Autobot might say about this switching of parole officers. Would he point out that Hook didn't answer to him anymore and mock him for daring to call, or demand the ex-'Con serve him anyway? Hook couldn't decide which response would be worse.

He got back to his feet and hesitantly sat at the desk after standing in internal conflict for a klik longer. Legally, Kup held no sway over him anymore. The thought brought no comfort to him, but he clung to it nonetheless. Without that official connection between them, Hook owed him nothing. Hook didn't _need_him for anything. Kup didn't have any official, legal reason to have anything more to do with him, much less protect him, and certainly there was no reason he'd assign the ex-Decepticon chores.

The only reason Hook had run the errands and done the chores was the threat of what might happen if he didn't. At least, that was the only reason he was willing to acknowledge. The other reasons - were unimportant, even though they'd been outside of the official rules all along. Things done behind closed doors had never officially happened, and this was definitely not the time to start thinking about what happened when those doors wouldn't let him in. Did he want back in? Primus, now was the wrong time to wonder that. The important thing was that now Ratchet was the one keeping him out of the spark-boxes. Ratchet was the one he had to please now. Hook...should ask Ratchet if there was anything he should be doing now. Right?

But then there had been the head medic's face when Hook had asked if he wanted him to report personally. The tone and expression Ratchet had worn when he had first called the head medic off-shift to ask for the medical staff list. No, Ratchet didn't want an ex-'Con anywhere around him when off-shift. A query after work would only disturb the mech and rile his temper. Hook would probably get into even _more_ trouble if he bothered him while Ratchet was working.

Speaking of which, Hook checked the shift schedule, and yes, there was Ratchet listed as _'On-duty'_ after his regular shift was over. Some wise-aft had even added the special short-hand, Ratchet-only glyphs for '_On Rampage, Do Not Disturb._' Every staff member knew those glyphs well, and Hook had learned them quickly, too. For while endlessly patient and polite during regular shift times, Ratchet got downright crabby and snarky the longer he was held overtime. Woe betide the shift working with him if he'd been held over to fill out forms.

It was a well-worn joke in the medbay that one of these days, Ratchet would get so fed up doing endless administrative filework that the next 'bot who gave him more was liable to get one of the CMO's prized tools thrown at him in sheer frustration. Current betting favoured Prowl bringing that one datapad too many. Tool of choice: wrench. Betting was split about whether or not it would knock the victim out and, if it did, whether or not Ratchet would bother reviving him. Although to be fair, popular option held that he would, if only because it wasn't as satisfying to yell at an unconscious mech.

But all that didn't help Hook now. Ratchet wasn't available, and that landed him back in his original dilemma: whether or not to call Kup.

He laid his hand on the desk, then took it back. Then lifted it again, only to let it hover over the comm. console as doubt simmered in his spark.

Logically, there was no reason to call Kup. There wasn't. This…dependency was habit, nothing more. The ingrained habit of nearly three vorns of defeat and obligation. Anyone would hesitate in his situation. And if he kept telling himself that, he might believe it.

For a while, at least, he could put it off. Hook turned in his seat, looking at the fine coating of grit on every surface with a sense of relief far out of proportion for just reaching a simple decision. Look at his quarters! Sure, they were nothing special, but they were filthy. This couldn't stand.

He carefully didn't think about what he was doing as he stood to fetch a vac-rag for the dust. Somewhere, he had to have a pack of cleansing cloths as well, and the search would keep him occupied for a while. He didn't think about how cleaning was a task that required him to stay in his quarters, able to drop everything in case his comm. buzzed. Surely it would, because some part of him refused to accept a universe where Kup wouldn't notice his absence and utterly _ream_ him for disobedience.

It wouldn't be pleasant. Having an older-than-stars sergeant storm into his quarters and use that icy, infuriated tone of voice that promised Hook would regret whatever he'd done would never be pleasant. No mech could possibly wait for that moment. Wilting to his knees as fear melted his back struts into mush would never be a good thing. Crawling to Kup's feet, apologizing and asking forgiveness, swearing that Ratchet had confused him, it wouldn't happen again, please let him serve, tell him what to do, please Sir, please - well, no. He wouldn't find that pleasant. He would never admit, ever, even to himself, if he did.

So he cleaned in a state of uneasy dread, waiting for his Mas - ex-parole officer to bring him back to heel. He cleaned, he tidied, and then he found himself sitting on the hard slab of his berth fidgeting. Him! Hook! Fidgeting like an inexperienced medtech on the first day of rounds!

By now, Kup would have returned to inspect Hook's work on the storage cubes. He might have stooped to asking the Constructicon's opinion on the workmanship, and then likely spat on that opinion. He'd have casually trampled his pet ex-Decepticon's pride underfoot until the surgeon squirmed and begged pardon for speaking in the first place. Or, perhaps, the old green sadist could have taken the completely unexpected route and given one of his few and far between words of praise for a job well-done.

A dim flush of heat dispersed through Hook's systems at the mere thought.

A chill immediately followed as the Constructicon broke from the fantasy in sudden, horrorstruck realization of what he'd just thought. And how he'd reacted. And what the _frag_ had he been doing, _daydreaming_ about getting one of those approving pats on the head Kup infrequently favored him with?!

He threw himself down on the berth, stubbornly offlining his visor and not thinking _at all_about how strange it was going to be recharging here the whole night instead of getting kicked away from his spot curled up on the floor by Kup's berth. The Autobot tended to boot him out after half the night. Spending a whole night in his own quarters was strange, and spending the whole time on a berth was different, but that was good. Of course it felt odd right now. He'd readjust to recharging like a normal mech soon enough.

Wouldn't he?


	6. The easy part

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warning: all still apply**

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**Part Six: "Admitting you don't desire that freedom isn't the hard part."**

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The orn started badly for Hook, who - having tossed and turned, unable to properly power down - had rolled over out of habit in the middle of his recharge cycle to avoid Kup kicking him. He'd promptly fallen off his berth, waking with a clang and a yelp. As if that hadn't been disorienting enough, he'd stumbled out the door from sheer habit only to realize he wasn't in Kup's quarters once he'd gotten out into the hallway. It'd been totally confusing for a good klik and a half because nothing had looked familiar until his CPU finished rebooting out of its defrag cycle and helpfully reminded him of current events.

He'd barely gone back into recharge when his internal alarm (still set to Kup's schedule) had woken him up again. His CPU hadn't even bothered restarting the defragment process, which caused his processors to lag as they tried to reset and clock at regular speed without downtime. He'd given up going back into recharge as a bad idea, as his work shift was scheduled to begin in seventeen breems. Knowing his current luck, he'd probably doze off just before he was due to leave and be late for his first work shift with Ratchet as his parole officer. That wouldn't do at all.

So the Constructicon sat up on his berth and reset his visor until it stopped throwing up static and focused properly. Looking around his now-clean quarters, he deliberately didn't look at the comm. console. He didn't need Kup to call and ream him out for not coming over. He didn't!

With some effort, Hook turned to wondering what others (but not Kup! Definitely not Kup!) routinely did before their work shifts. Getting the morning ration of energon was a given, but he generally redeemed his chit in the infirmary's breakroom when he worked this shift. Socializing with friends wasn't going to happen. He fueled in the breakroom while reviewing any new patient charts from the previous two shifts, not while chatting, and he could name perhaps three mechs he'd voluntarily socialize with, in or out of work. Two, now, but he wasn't thinking about that.

That left…cleaning up in the washracks? Hook looked himself over and found that actually had appeal. He hadn't done so before trying to recharge, and the chemical accidents last work shift had been particularly messy.

Cleaning up might be a problem, he realized with dawning horror, since his quarters didn't have an attached washrack, and now he couldn't use Kup's. _Not_ that he was thinking about that. He'd have to use the habitation block's communal washracks, and everyone in this section was a paroled Decepticon. Who he hadn't seen since attending the move-in orientation meeting for all of two kliks almost two vorns ago. He hadn't done more than pass by his neighbors and ex-factionmates in the halls and common room for who-knew-how-long, ever since he'd initially been caught up serving his Mas - Kup!

Primus frag it.

It was only an admission of weakness if someone else saw him do it, right? Hook put his face in his hands and concentrated on regulating his ventilation system. Keeping the inhale/exhale cycle slow and relaxed took more effort than he wanted to admit. The poor recharge had done nothing to stabilize him. He still felt as if the ground had been swept out from under him. He was trying to balance on thin air.

He had no idea what a regular morning was like for other mechs. It was a fair bet that the other ex-Decepticons didn't start their orn by waking up because their parole officer's schedule demanded it, however. Hook typically started his orn by blearily pinging Kup's door for entry and immediately setting to work on whatever he'd stopped doing before recharge. By now, he should have been folding up the last of the gift box's top into an ornate closure as Kup snapped at him about being so slow he was useless. The Autobot would grab the box and leave, allowing him to use the suite's washrack in privacy before work.

Or Kup would push him into the 'rack, pin him to the wall, and set about giving a lesson on why Hook should always be spotless in his presence. Hook couldn't count the number times he'd mewled and gasped against the cleanser ledge, deliriously swearing up and down that he'd be squeaky-clean when Kup saw him next. If he was convincing, sincere and shuddering and keeping his hands exactly where they'd been pressed down, he might get a reward for being a _good_ pet. Sometimes he was clean enough to begin with, and that's what he tried for. The reward wasn't the real motivation, but the approval behind it was: the content rumble of Kup's engine when he, just sometimes, allowed Hook to run the solvent nozzle over the hard-to-reach areas on his old body.

Then, off to his duty shift. The rest of the orn would be nothing more than rinse and recycle, with variations in what chores Kup assigned him each night and morning. Well, not quite that identical. He didn't have the same shift time-slot every orn. Kup wasn't around for orns at a time, either, since being a parole officer wasn't his only job. But Hook had always had instructions on what to do during those times.

Also access to the washrack. Even if he'd been forbidden to touch anything else in the old Autobot's quarters, the Constructicon was still permitted - ordered, really - to use the attached washrack. Kup liked him to be clean, to the point where Hook's usual fanaticism over cleanliness fitted perfectly with how the crotchety crank preferred to see him every orn. He'd just been so unsettled by last shift's news that he'd neglected to use the infirmary's 'racks before leaving.

Meaning that he could either report for duty covered in yesterday's grime, or venture down the corridor to where the habitation block's communal washracks were supposed to be located. What a great choice.

Behind the safety of his hands, Hook wished someone else would make it for him.

Lacking that option, eventually he had to choose for himself. Getting up and leaving his quarters looking as if everything was normal was one of the harder things Hook had since the war had ended. It felt oddly difficult to move, as if he'd become lethargic from lack of downtime for defragmentation.

He shook his head as if it'd jostle his processors into faster computing as he walked. It would be fine. There might not even be anyone in the washracks. It was still early in the light cycle.

Striding along to end of the hallway and turning into the corridor that held the washracks, the Constructicon was pleased that he encountered no-one, not even those ex-'Cons assigned to janitorial duties whose shift would just be ending. Almost confident in his solitude, he strode up to the washrack doors and calmly and deliberately pushed the access pad to open the doors - and got stared at by the entire just-off-duty janitorial shift.

Oh.

Well, then.

Millions of years of warfare came to the rescue. Walking into a room full of strangers gawking at him like an apparition from the past had nothing on walking in on Megatron trying to stuff Starscream into an isolation box. And, frag, Hook had done that plenty of times.

First rule of startling situations: control facial expression, keep detached, and walk forward as if of course he belonged there.

Then slip on spilled cleanser and nearly fall. Smooth, Hook.

One leg went out from under him, and the Constructicon's easy stride became a brief sideways stagger to the nearest wall. His hand shot out and braced him before he made a total fool of himself and fell face-first into something, but so much for a good first impression. If these mechs hadn't picked up on his post-war reputation for being a complete klutz outside of the medbay, they were certain to get it now.

First Rule: stay calm, cool, and collected. Second Rule: nothing was wrong, and he hadn't done whatever it was that hadn't just happened. But he could headhunt for whomever had if he were so inclined.

Hook drew himself up and frowned at the floor as if it were to blame. Deliberately avoiding the near-physical force of the stares being directed at him gave him that critical moment to adjust. Then he raised his head, slow and steady, to glare the room down. It was like walking into a remote base's medical facility for the first time to do an inspection. Establishment of authority via intimidation; '_Return to your work, or face the consequences.'_

Suddenly, the silent room became a center of vigorous activity. Ex-Decepticons were splashing and washing industriously, totally focused on using the washracks, yup, just look at them use 'em.

A rack station mysteriously opened up as Hook stalked forward - watching where he was putting his feet this time - to claim it. As it should. The longer he was here, the more his mask of dignity and calm solidified. Of course these mechs moved aside for him. Post-war or not, he had been an _officer_. He'd been one of the Constructicons, one of the deadliest combiner teams in either faction. Besides that, he was a high-ranking medical professional. There was a reason he'd been spared during the war crime trials. Just try and find an Autobot with his talent at surgery!

Still, that didn't mean he needed to stick around longer than necessary. He was so far above this rabble the idea of associating with them outside an official capacity was revolting. He was only here to get cleaned up in preparation for the next duty shift. That was all.

That in mind, Hook slapped a hand against the nozzle controls to begin the spray and began cleaning himself thoroughly. For the briefest moment, one hand absently reached for the specialized brush set Kup kept in his quarters - but he wasn't there, and the brushes weren't here. A quick grab at the communal set covered his automatic motion. The smallest brush had worn down bristles and needed to be replaced, but it would do for the morning. He'd either have to get a set of his own like some of the mechs around him had, or simply remember to use the blasted infirmary washracks every orn.

In the meantime, he'd use what he had. The brush was applied studiously to his hands first. He scowled at the amount of grime flushing just from the joints of his fingers. He really should have done this before he left the infirmary the orn before. Treating so many patients from that chemical accident meant a lot of leftover residue from chemicals, grease, lubricants, energon, and any other manner of refuse. Had he not been so thrown by his sudden (unwanted?) change in parole officers, this never would have happened.

Hook let the frustration with his current state of cleanliness distract him from dwelling on _that_. The last thing he needed was to lock up in denial once more in front of a mass of Decepticons. He couldn't risk showing _any_ form of weakness to them. So, he focused entirely on washing himself: first his hands and forearms, then his torso before he turned around to let the solvent shower cleanse his back. His altmode kibble was difficult to keep clean without aid, but he'd manage. It wasn't like he was the first mech with awkwardly-placed exterior bits.

He deliberately kept his face lowered slightly but the light of his visor dull, not meeting anyone's gaze but giving off the air that he was doing so because he didn't care who was watching him, _not_ because he was purposely _avoiding_ them. He looked through the communal brushes for one with a long, bent handle for - ah ha. Urgh, disgusting. Did no one sterilize these things? Oh, well, it was only one morning. He'd just wash again after his shift finished.

Focused on cleaning himself as he was, the Constructicon didn't hear the furious, whispered argument several rack stations over. Words such as, "Don't, you moron!" and, "Some truth in rumours," were traded back and forth until one mech rolled his optics and muttered, "Your funeral."

Hook probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the argument even if he'd heard it in the first place. But as it was, he soon learned what it was about as the 'victor' of the argument came over to his station just as the surgeon was bending over to wash his legs.

_Smack!_

Hook jolted forward with a yell and promptly slipped again, almost pitching face-first onto the tiled floor and barely catching himself in time.

What. The. Frag.

He flipped over and sat on the floor glaring up at the large maroon ex-Decepticon grinning down at him as silence reigned once again in the washracks.

The grin faltered a bit as time passed. A klik or so.

A second could have been surprise. A few could have been the surgeon composing a reply instead of an instant reaction, which would fit in with his level-headed (if perfectionist-glitched) personality. An entire klik took the situation from _"What's he gonna do?"_ to _"What did **I** just do?"_

The silence broke into nervous titters and a few murmurs as mechs wondered out loud if they were about to witness a murder.

Truthfully, Hook's processors had just reached capacity. Poor recharge had limited his defrag cycle to spurts and starts. Anxiety over the unknown had occupied the rest of his thoughts, spinning sub-processors through scenario after scenario: Kup petitioning the Prime to get rid of him, the Prime re-assigning Hook because Ratchet had whispered in his audio, the Prime actually streamlining the parole system, Kup bursting through Hook's door and hauling him back into service by one shoulder, Ratchet giving Hook actual directions...

Some of the scenarios had been improvements. Some had been benign. Some had been enough to panic him at code-level, they were such nightmares. It felt like bits of his mind were unraveling, drowning in his gestaltmates' never-ending, never-changing terror, and there was no angry, abusive slagger of an Autobot officer here to kick him out of his own head.

So he glared up at the maroon mech who'd just _smacked his aft_ and literally could not decide on a single reaction.

A part of him he was never, ever going to acknowledge wanted to feel the sharp physical contact as nothing more than normal. It was...almost welcome. As muddled as his processors felt this morning, it had kind of cleared his head. Kup would have done no less, although he'd have immediately followed it up by pushing Hook's face into the wall and telling him to stay still, he couldn't even wash his crane arm correctly without help, what kind of pathetic mech was he?

Maybe, just maybe, if this idiot of a rankless Decepticon had started by pushing him around that way - but he hadn't. He'd hesitated, waiting for a reaction, and now Hook's CPU was clicking through. The optical sensors behind his visor spiraled down, narrowing as rage bloomed out from his spark.

"What," sliced through the steam and voices alike and left silence in its wake, "do you think," suddenly everyone was reminded all over again that construction equipment was very large and very heavy as one of few remaining free mechs from the Decepticon Elite slowly stood, "you are doing?" And goodness, wasn't he quite intimidating when he moved to loom over someone like that?

Hook was not oblivious to the soft murmurs that began to echo through the crowd of onlookers, but all of his attention was on the offending mech in front of him. He tried to place a name to the face and the color, but he couldn't for the same reason he couldn't remember the technician's name the other orn: he was an inferior mech who didn't deserve to be stored in Hook's short _or_ long-term memory. And as the Constructicon remembered _that_, his rage only grew at the nameless mech's sheer audacity.

The moment of clarity could never be worth taking a slap from someone like _this_.

"Well?" he snapped as he took an aggressive step forward, his hands balling into fists. "I **asked you a question**." His crimson visor flared brighter with anger that grew to fury as static licked at the edges of his vision from lack of a proper defrag.

"I-I, well..." The maroon cretin took a step back as it finally entered his dim processor that maybe, just maybe, he'd bitten off a whole lot more then he could chew. Hook intended to make him to _choke_ on it.

"Well, what?" The Constructicon's voice could almost be called civil if it didn't have an unsubtle tone of '_I'm going to take you apart **messily** if you don't answer my question_' running through it.

"I-I-I heard you wh-where into that sorta th-thing," the scrap-waste reject gibbered out before backing up further and stuttering, "But you're obviously not s-so I'm just gonna go no-ow." Then he tried to scuttle away.

Unluckily for him, Hook wanted an explanation. He grabbed the imbecile and hauled him up to optic height to snarl, "What sort of thing?"

More stuttering. Must he deal with simpletons every moment of every day? The surgeon shook the twitter-pated mech violently, more to vent his frustration than to shake an answer loose.

"Hey, look," one of the observers started, and the Constructicon's head snapped around. The crowd stared back, half-afraid and half-amused, like bystanders trapped inside a gladiatorial rink with a particularly unpredictable ongoing fight. Whoever had spoken was wisely hiding among them, but that wasn't going to save him. Hook was no stranger to intimidating the bolts off the ranks of inferior mechs. Just because he no longer held office in the Decepticon faction didn't make him any less bigger, stronger, or able to dissemble them for spare parts.

Personnel issues in the Decepticons had been _so_ much easier to deal with.

"**Someone** had better start talking," the surgeon sneered, "or I'm going to start taking all of you apart, one by one." A squeak came from the mech dangling from his hands, and Hook absently adjusted his grip to threaten the glitch's vocalizer. Maroon the Moron immediately went quiet and extremely still, taking the hint. The Constructicon approved. Sometimes, information was best obtained from the herd-like audience, not the instigator.

Anyway, his tolerance for stammering began and ended with single-word answers to medical questions. And he had no interest in whether or not this hurt.

A short blue mech eased forward, daring to separate out from the crowd and draw Hook's attention. His hands were proffered as if to show he was harmless. "Okay, we're not trying to start a fight here," he soothed, optics narrow and wary as they zipped back and forth between the enraged ex-Elite officer and not-so-Elite victim. "I think we can all agree that getting written up on report is a bad idea, yeah? We'd like to avoid that, yeah? So how about you let him go, and we talk like rational mechs? No muss, no fuss, nobody gets hurt?"

Mech was probably a friend of aft-smacker, here. Hook shook the idiot again, and the crowd shifted uneasily. Herd mentality. Once the leader moved, they'd all follow. He swept them with a glare to hustle the process along. Short-and-blue had spoken up without getting killed, so a false sense of security coaxed the rest into speaking.

"There's a rumor..."

"Only a rumor! We didn't think it was true at all!"

"Seriously! We know you're not like that."

"Who would be?"

"And anyway, it's not like you'd put up with it."

"Yeah, one complaint's all it'd take. Even old Kup would get himself removed over that."

"You think? I heard that's why Ratchet was assigned."

"The Prime wouldn't let Kup off that easy, would he?"

"It's fraggin' **Kup**. 'Course he would."

"Uh...that is, if it were true that you let him - but it's not true."

"Of course not!"

"Never believed it for a second!"

"He wouldn't do that to you. Or anyone."

"Maybe Starscream."

"Yeah, but Starscream probably would have liked it."

"Right. But, er, of course you wouldn't."

"But, like I said, there's this rumor, and, well, **some** mechs - "

"Not us!"

" - take that kind of idea and run with it."

"So you see..."

"...just a mistake."

It took a moment to sort through the sudden deluge of voices talking over and around each other. Did none of these mechs have any sense? Jabbering away like a flock of dynametal ducks did nothing but annoy him, and the echo in the washracks didn't improve his already foul mood.

When he finally extracted some information from the blathering, it didn't help that any. "And what **precisely** is this rumour that was such a mistake?" Hook's patience - what little there was in the first place - was most definitely _gone_.

The herd shifted uneasily, no-one meeting Hook's visor as he glared around the room again. Just what was this rumour that was so unsavory that Hook got compared to Starscream of all mechs? Hook unfortunately knew all of Starscream's...preferences, having had to fix either him or whatever partner he had at the time whenever something went wrong. He'd give a _lot_ to purge those memories. Except for the fiasco Astrotrain and four other flyers had been involved in, because some things deserved to be gilded and set on a pedestal as a pinnacle of interfacing achievement to mentally scar future generations with.

What the frag did Kup and Starscream have in common? The only thing Kup could have done to the Seeker that would have been enjoyed -

His hand tightened as it hit him. The mech hanging from it made an odd croaking noise as something _crunch_ed in his throat, but Hook hardly cared.

Somebody in the group did, however, and the short mech's hands lifted in an openly placating gesture. "Hey, hey, take it easy! Just a rumor, you know? I heard it from somebody who said he heard it from somebody who **said** he heard it from his parole officer that, well, you know." Except the disturbingly blank expression on the larger, angrier ex-Decepticon's face clearly conveyed that he didn't. "Uh, you know. That Kup kinda did some things to you. For fun. Like, well, yeah." A helpless gesture toward his friend, followed by a more aimless one toward Hook's lower half that could have meant anything if they all weren't thinking of one specific thing. "And you, uh, you liked it. Uh. You know."

It all fell into one horrible, accurate line of reasoning. Hook's face wasn't blank because he didn't know. It was blank because indescribable horror had wiped everything else away.

A rumor.

A rumor from an Autobot.

That had reached even the ex-Decepticons in the sector.

_Everybody knew._

The blank look was disconcerting the whole lot of them. "So...honest error," their spokesmech said somewhat lamely. "He just, uh, you know. Made a mistake."

"Big mistake," someone added from behind him.

"Yeah."

Hook slowly turned his head toward the maroon mech who'd done nothing more than take advantage of what information he'd had, and he wanted to slam him through the wall. Pound him into scrap. Turn him into a lifeless wreck and rebuild him into a table as a lesson to anyone who'd dare believe such a crass rumor -

- that was true, Primus help him, it was true, it was true, what the frag could he do to hide the truth when it was galloping through the halls all around him -

- but he couldn't.

Hook dropped him like the piece of waste metal he was. "You, with me," he ordered, turning to stride toward the door, and it took every bit of willpower scraped up from millions of years of war to walk straight. "That gear in your throat won't fix itself." The mech herd parted before him quickly; no-one wanted to get in arm's reach of the larger ex-Decepticon, especially not when he seemed perfectly prepared to go through them if he must.

He might not have even noticed if he'd had to. Panic had his head in a vise and his spark bursting like a firecracker. They knew, they all knew, and the private game was public gossip now. They _knew_.

Storming out of the washracks, the Constructicon frankly did not care that he was tracking cleanser everywhere. He barely cared about the frantic footsteps behind him as his fellow ex-'Con tried to keep up with his larger strides, except for the fact that he didn't have to physically haul Maroon the Moron around himself. Single-mindedly ignoring the stares from others just going off-shift and those now going on-shift - because otherwise he'd wonder what they were thinking (did they know?!) - he marched towards the Medbay with molester in tow and refused to think about it. He couldn't think about. If he thought about it, his spark would disintegrate in a shrieking fit of pure embarrassment.

Once through the doors, a heavy weight stepped off his fuel pump. It still hammered, but the infirmary was familiar territory. Dangerous, still, but safer than anywhere outside. Had he been a weaker mech, he'd have slumped against the nearest wall and tried to collect his collapsing composure.

Hook merely pointed at a free berth and glared the idiot into sitting on it. Delaying would only make treatment more difficult as self-repair kicked in. Picking up a scanner to determine what gear he'd actually broken in the twit's vocalizer, the surgeon realized that the Medbay was silent. As it never was. He glanced about to find the whole room staring at them.

"What are you all staring at?" He tried to keep most of the snarl out of his voice, half-remembering the last time he'd failed to do so. Kup hadn't been pleased. He didn't even know how the old mech had found out, but he'd spent half a joor after that shift enduring a blistering lecture on politeness and manners in the workplace…all while face-down on the floor under Kup's heel, vocalizer disabled until he'd managed to convince the sergeant that he'd use it properly if allowed to speak again.

"That's what I want to know." The question came from directly behind him. It wasn't the gruff grumble from someone mercilessly old and painted an aged green, but that was still not a voice he wanted to hear right now. "You do know you're getting cleanser everywhere?"

Hook looked over his shoulder to confirm his fears: Ratchet.

Oh, grand.

Panic churned his tanks, because only now did it hit him exactly what he'd done. He'd been so caught up in what the rumors said that he hadn't realized what he'd done to uncover that information. He'd started a _fight_. Or rather, finished one, because like the Pit was he taking responsibility for this. Maroon the Moron here had thrown the first punch, even if it had been aimed at his aft.

That didn't change the fact that Hook, ex-'Con and current parolee, had been involved in a fight. Fights were strictly prohibited. The Autobots got leniency for off-duty scuffles because 'bots would be 'bots, but nobody was going to let a bunch of Decepticons off that easily. The war was a looming threat, still. Would the Autobots resort to unprecedented harsh punishments to curtail any hint of rebellion? Yes. They had, and they would. Fights between prisoners alone had accounted for heavy injuries and a high death toll before and during the war criminal trials. The Autobots had moved to cut off that trend. The parole system had put an end to the fights real quick by introducing the first violators to their very own prison boxes.

It'd been bad enough waiting with pounding fuel pump for the verdict in his trial. It'd been even worse having his sentence commuted to parole service but still having to stand witness as the Autobots put his surviving teammates under and ripped their sparks out to imprison. The terror they'd suffered had come through strong enough to send his joints rattling loose where he'd stood, statis-cuffed and absolutely helpless because of his tenuous personal sentence. The Autobot guards had been waiting all around him for just one misstep. Then, post-trials, after it'd seemed like the paroled ex-Decepticons had escaped with just a slap on the wrist, Kup had sat Hook down in front of a vidscreen and shown him what awaited him if he broke just one parole stipulation.

He'd do almost anything to avoid that fate.

His head turned back forward, and he stared blindly past the maroon mech's shoulder as his processors scrambled through the brand new torrent of fear. It was a fantastical three-ring show of horror rushing to join the ongoing Carnival of Terror that'd set up in his spark last shift.

"I fell down," Maroon the Moron redeemed himself in one simple statement. Hook's fuel pump skipped, and his visor twitched just enough to meet the other ex-'Con's optics. "In the washracks. Took a nozzle to the throat." One hand pointed to his own throat, but the mech never looked away from the Constructicon. Something painful ached in the surgeon's spark for that shared moment of fear. "Ah, we just..."

"I brought him here for repairs immediately, as you can see," Hook finished for him dryly, before the lackwit's innate stupidity could reemerge. A tiny quirk that could have been a relieved grin ticked one side of the other mech's mouth, but then red optics looked away and the moment ended. It left Hook feeling strangely alone. Isolated.

He glanced over his shoulder again, smoothing a well-practiced mask into place over his fear. Ratchet raised an optic ridge and said nothing for a long moment. He looked as if he did not quite believe their cobbled-together story. They were, after all, ex-Decepticons.

Finally he shrugged and looked hard at Hook for a moment, optics searching. He didn't seem to find what he was looking for. "Fine, fine." One hand waved them off, dismissing the fishy story and their innocent expressions as not worth the hassle. He walked away.

It was all Hook could do not to fidget. He silently cursed inside, watching the medic's back. Close, so close. His visor flicked back to the moron of the maroon paint scheme who'd started all this. Who hadn't started it, not really, but it was easier not to think about that. He'd rather blame a scapegoat than think too much about things his fuel pump would jackhammer over. Not right now. That'd been too close to push their luck further.

"Right, let's get this over with," the surgeon muttered, activating the scanner and running it along the mech's vocalizer. He noted the damage. "The gear track's only bent. That's a relatively quick fix. I just have to heat it up and bend it back." Hook didn't quite spit the words. An easy, quick fix that was well below his skill set or status as a surgeon, but the war had frequently called for his skills outside of serious operations. It was maddening, not new. Acting as a general medic in an Autobot medbay merely meant he couldn't take his resultant frustration out on a patient. Much. With this particular patient, he didn't bother to tone down the sneering disdain when he asked, "I suppose you'll want a pain patch?"

"Uh. Yes." Maroon the Moron looked towards him again, not quite meeting his visor. He seemed vaguely ashamed to want the pain patch, which he should. Decepticon infirmaries had never dispensed them during the war unless the screaming reached a certain pitch. Decepticons were not _weaklings_ to give in so easily to pain from simple repairs.

Hook wanted to backhand the idiot and order him to shore up his backstruts, but they were no longer at war. He was no longer an officer, or a head medic in control of pharmacy practices. He didn't have the option to withhold what the Autobots insisted were 'necessary' for the comfort of patients.

So he merely snorted and retrieved the code stick from the drawer next to the berth, along with a size two blowtorch. Putting the blowtorch down on the berth next to his dimwitted patient, the Constructicon unspooled a wrist cord.

He motioned to the medical access port on the mech's neck. "Open up, then." That got him an uneasy look but obedience, and the port spiraled open. Jabbing in the code stick and cord, Hook directed the anesthetic coding towards blocking vocalizer sensory feedback. He set the code degradation to begin in a joor, when moron would likely be halfway through his recharge-cycle. The defrag cycle would untangle the foreign medical code from his own code and sweep it out cleanly.

From there on out, it was a straightforward procedure. If he'd been thinking past instinctive panic, Hook would have done it right there in the washracks with a jury-rigged laser-scalpel and bonus whimpers of pain. This dunce deserved it.

That didn't stop the surgeon from feeling oddly...lonely when the twit scurried out of the infirmary and back to his off-shift. The whole incident had done nothing but get him covered in dried, crusted cleanser and rub in the inescapable fact that he wanted nothing to do with the majority of other Cybertronians. He never had, really, but that'd been fine. He'd always had Scavenger's clinginess (the only Decepticon stupid enough to be cuddly) and Mixmaster's neurotic (if sporadic) need for a second opinion, Bonecrusher's rough physical contact (when Hook couldn't dodge him in time) and Long Haul's duel desire to push everyone away yet be ever-present (in case he could be useful, but bitching the whole time to make everyone regret asking his help). And then, of course, there'd been Scrapper.

Now Hook had nothing from them but numb pain or claustrophobic terror, and nobody was offering him a better deal. The other ex-'Cons in the sector were cannon-fodder repurposed in mundane jobs fitting their limited intellects. The thought of actually _seeking out_ that kind of company was enough to turn his tanks.

That left his coworkers and colleagues.

Hook looked up and swept the room with a casual glance. He knew their names now because he dreaded the consequences of screwing that up again, but that didn't mean he labeled them that way in his head. Instead, he looked at them and thought of them as moron, twitchy moron, not in a million vorn, oh please he had standards, not if he were the last mech alive, and what was his function even? That was just the medics and nurses. Did non-certified personnel even count?

Frag, not like any of them would dare talk to him, anyway. He'd had three vorns to create a personal space bubble made of titanium, and only now did he feel trapped by it. The only one in the room with free rein to pass through that shield was also the one whom Hook thought might make passable company.

Unfortunately, Hook was going to avoid his current parole officer like a plague of Cosmic Rust, because the urge to confess his violation had his vocalizer surging. Three vorns of intensive training in obedience and telling no lies had him nervous what would come out of his mouth if he dared open it around Ratchet. If _Kup_ had been the one to catch him - dear Primus, he didn't even want to think about it. The old 'bot might not be his parole officer anymore, but that didn't stop the crawling unease making him flinch in his armor at the mere thought of what Kup would have done. Or, worse, if Hook had dared lie to him about it, because eventually the rusted clank _would_ have found _that_ out. And then...

Just the thought had him taking an abortive step toward Ratchet.

Until his processor caught up with his frame that was and he stalled, turning away, hiding the movement in a pretense of putting the blowtorch away. The thought of what Kup would have done was nothing to the fact that he didn't know what Ratchet would do if he found out. At least the older Autobot had been...predictable. Hook had spent so long working out what the old clank had wanted and _didn't_ want that suddenly having a new parole officer - a new, unknown variable - was unsettling.

Would the Chief Medical Officer defend or condemn him in the face of a parole violation? The fight had been minor, barely even qualifying as a violation in the first place, but that judgment was in the optics of his parole officer. If Ratchet was going to play his role by the book, the scuffle in the washracks was enough to put Hook in a spark-box. The medic had never liked Hook, but he'd never gone out of his way to persecute the Constructicon, either. Would there be leniency granted in the future if the surgeon went before him, confessed, and...frag, Hook didn't even know what next.

He'd begged Kup's pardon so often over trifles that he didn't have a clue how else to approach the situation. A reasonable discussion, perhaps? He had no perspective anymore on what would be a small transgression that would earn a verbal warning versus a more serious write-up. Would Ratchet be amendable to talking about potential issues?

His hand paused in the midst of rearranging the tool drawer, and Hook's visor looked into nothing as that thought struck home. Autobots were emotional creatures, but his supervisor-turned-parole officer had worked with him for vorns now. He had to know that the ex-'Con would cooperate whenever possible. Of course, he didn't know how much Kup's role stepping on the back of Hook's neck had tied into that cooperation, but being freed of the foot on his neck hadn't changed the fact that, more than anything, the Constructicon wanted to stay out of a spark-box.

If the surgeon could somehow just approach the head medic right, maybe this could be addressed logically. It might actually smooth things over if he raised the matter of the rumors at the same time. If he brought them up, playing on his concern over how they were causing friction between the other ex-Decepticons and himself, maybe Ratchet would know where they'd started. It could be said that it was part of Ratchet's responsibility as his supervisor or parole officer to find the source of these kind of filthy (truths) lies being muttered from mech to mech. Hook could casually bring up what he'd heard, his concerns over his professional reputation, and ever-so-subtly open the door for the head medic to just plain tell him what he should do.

It wasn't a great plan of action, but at least it was better than standing by doing nothing while control slipped like sand through his fingers.

He was about to turn to Ratchet once again when he nearly slipped on a puddle of cleanser on the floor. Absolutely mortified, the surgeon looked down at himself. Solvent had dried on his plating, but the cleanser had still dribbled slowly toward the floor. He pulled one of his cleaning cloths from subspace and dried himself off until he was at least not dripping on the ground anymore. That was the obvious solution.

And then he reluctantly looked along the trail of solvent and suds he had tracked into the repair bay. His spark clenched. Maybe he should...maybe?

None of the medics and nurses (a.k.a. morons and idiots) were looking at him or the mess on the floor, but their careful non-reaction had the feel of deliberately ignoring it all. Only Ratchet met his optics across the repair berths and arc welders to raise an expectant optic ridge. The medic didn't actually want him to mop the floor, did he? That was what cleaning drones, lab technicians, or any of the uneducated masses were for!

If it were Kup instead of Ratchet, however, the answer would be a definite '_Yes.'_ Kup would likely force him to get down on his knees and _lick_ up the mess he had made. Preferably with his aft in the air and his servos behind his back, after having to beg for the _privilege_ of being allowed to clean up his mess.

With Ratchet, Hook just _didn't know_. The not-knowing and constant threat of the prison spark-box hovering over him was starting to eat through his already-shaky composure. If he wanted to get into the head medic's good graces so that his appeal might fall on sympathetic audios, he should probably comply with the unspoken order. No matter how demeaning. Okay. Fine.

He threw Ratchet a covert look, only to discover the medic was still staring at him. The Chief Medical Officer didn't look happy. Not by a long shot.

Hook quickly dropped his gaze back to the floor and the puddle trail in front of him. Gritting his denta, he let go of the cleaning cloth - his personal cleaning cloth at that, although he was on parole and only got whatever his parole officer allowed him, so maybe it wasn't all that personal after all - and let it flutter to the ground. It hurt his pride to have one of the few things he considered _his_ be defiled like that, but there were no other cleaning supplies within immediate reach.

Reluctantly, he put a pede on the cloth and wiped it across the floor. It sloshed the suds more than wiped them up, but at least he was swallowing his pride and making an effort. That counted, didn't it?

He glanced up again, and the look on Ratchet's face actually confused him a bit. There was a flash of - resignation? - before the Autobot looked away. Apparently, half-sparked effort was good enough for his new parole officer.

That woke a funny conflict in Hook's chest. Half of him wanted to puff up and assure himself that of course it was plenty! He was a surgeon, not a janitor! Ratchet would be mad to expect Hook to mop the floor.

The other half of the Decepticon, the part that'd learned how easily an ego could be deflated, looked back to the smear of cleanser still on the floor and shivered deep in his fuel pump. If anything could have served to illustrate just how night-and-day different his parole officers were, this was it. Ratchet had given up on him; Kup would have used Hook's _face_ to finish the job.

That same part of him subsided, disappointed as the beginning of that indefinable thrill across his spark died before it went anywhere. For a second, there'd been a wild hope that Ratchet would demand more. That the head medic would take over, tell him his effort hadn't been good enough, and order him to do more. It…wouldn't have been the same, but that part of Hook he didn't like to think about craved the sinking sensation of his ego being punctured. He craved the feeling of something other than the fear that never stopped: fear of the unknown future, and fear of the known consequences. Because right now, the Constructicon wasn't feeling much else.

Regardless of Ratchet's wildly different expectations of ex-Decepticons, it didn't limit his power over this particular one. Hook kicked the damp cloth under the berth for the cleaning drones to fish out later and strode across the medbay toward his professional and government-mandated supervisor. The red-and-white mech looked up when his attending nurse smartly stepped aside before the Constructicon could nudge him out of the way.

"What now?" was really not the best way to have this conversation start out.

Hook's head jerked back almost unnoticeably at Ratchet's borderline-irritated tone. "I...would like to request a short meeting with you, Sir. Today, preferably during or after this shift." The medic's mouth twisted in true annoyance, and the surgeon held Cybertron's quickest internal debate before adding, "Not a staff meeting."

The twist froze and slowly smoothed out, forcibly neutral. If it wasn't a staff meeting, then Hook wasn't requesting a professional meeting between surgeon and supervisor. He was asking for a moment of his parole officer's time.

Kup would have laughed and mocked him for asking before refusing him out of hand. Ratchet, however, felt differently about the responsibilities and obligations of parole duty. Which was, admittedly, what Hook had gambled on.

That didn't mean the Autobot had to be happy about it. "Fine," he muttered, shooting his nurse a cranky look to summon him back. "Two breems; my office."

This time, it was Hook who stepped aside. "Yes Sir."


	7. The hard part

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warning: all still apply**

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**[* * * * *]**

**Part Seven: Admitting you want to be chained is.**

**[* * * * *]**

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Two breems really wasn't a long time, not enough to make a start on anything else and have it finished to his usual high standards. So it was with no small amount of relief that he entered Ratchet's office; he had been running out of small jobs to do while he waited. Standing around doing nothing wouldn't have endeared him to the other medic.

Chalk it up as another sense of fear slowly creeping up over his spark. There were so many sources now that he was having difficulty untangling the knotwork of fear enough to function normally. Everything was turning into another reason to be afraid. A fear of being judged useless for standing around idle refocused into a different fear when the meeting time came and he entered the office. It never went away; it just kept lapping higher every time he turned around.

"So?" Ratchet prompted when Hook made no effort to sit down, or indeed to say anything. The quickly masked irritation that flashed across his new parole officer's features reminded the Constructicon that wasting his time would not help.

…right. Kup had always directed their interactions behind closed doors. As overconfident as Hook could be in the medbay, he'd fallen right back into habit. "I. Needed to speak with you about." He faltered for a moment.

Of course, being in charge of the conversation left it up to him to bring everything up for discussion, and he had to remind himself that this wasn't part of a game. A certain level of self-abasement had been a hated necessity when speaking with Kup, because that's what Hook's role had been. He'd understood that, as much as he'd writhed when pinned down and forced to say words aloud in the most bluntly honest but humiliating way possible.

But he didn't know what Ratchet wanted of him. It seemed, or so he cautiously interpreted, that the head medic would prefer their relationship to remain on a strictly professional level. That was harder than it seemed, considering the topic he had to raise. The Constructicon just didn't know how to start the conversation that wouldn't either annoy the Pit out of Ratchet or leave him rolling on the floor laughing.

It wasn't like he could just out and ask straight away. He needed to be subtle. That had rarely been in his repertoire. Decepticon patients didn't need subtle; they need threats and glares. This soft-sparked Autobot slag was like a minefield. Give him a convoluted plot between Decepticon officers any orn over this polite-spoken personnel Pit-scrap. He knew how to manipulate via power games. It was not having any power of his own that was throwing him off his stride.

That, and the gibbering terror deep in his spark.

He reset his vocalizer with a small burst of static before raising his visor to meet Ratchet's optics.

"Sir, there have been," how to put this delicately? Hook paused and picked his words with care, "crude rumors circulating about the reasons behind the Prime changing who I report to. Normally, I would pay no mind to what," the common peasantry, "others thought, but the whispers have caused," he hesitated again, knowing this would open a potentially prison box-worthy issue but really not having a choice anymore, "problems." The head medic's optics didn't waver, and Hook's fuel pump thumped uncomfortably. "Between myself and the other parolees," he elaborated, fighting to keep his voice impassive. "I'm concerned that the issue will grow out of hand."

In other words: yes, he and the other ex-Decepticon had indeed gotten into a fight. And the potential was there for further fights.

That was edging around a full-on admission of parole violation. Hook's spark turned alarmed little somersaults in his chest.

Ratchet slowly leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on the desk, folding his fingers together. "I...see." The doubtful squint of one blue optic was less than reassuring. "It sounds like that's a personal problem, Hook." Bypassing the fact that it'd been the medbay's - and therefore the medbay supervisor's - problem not three breems ago.

But that also bypassed the sidelong admission of a fight. Hook could have collapsed into one of the chairs if he weren't holding himself so tense. So Ratchet wasn't out to catch him for the smallest error and punish him. That was a great relief!

That relief almost pushed the fear back down to manageable levels for a brief second. The surgeon seized the second and ran with it, clawing his way toward hope. He could do this. He could hold a conversation like a normal mech, he _could_. He wasn't two steps from a spark-box. Ratchet wasn't a power-mad or out to make his life miserable. Hook _didn't have to be afraid_.

If he kept telling himself that, maybe he wouldn't be so terrified? No? Well, wishful thinking felt nice while it lasted.

Now, how to politely and subtly ask where the rumors had come from, if it were true Rodimus had reassigned him based on those rumors, and - and what? Get Ratchet to help him? Tell him what to do? Get him to somehow ease the nonstop terror flooding his spark?

The only thing that'd ever managed that trick was really a who, and Kup wasn't here. The rules of their game were twisted and more complicated than Pi was long, but they'd made sense on a level Hook could grasp. Anything that pierced the terror was both acceptable and worth it. Kup had figured out what worked and used it ruthlessly.

Not that Hook wanted him here. Ratchet was occasionally obstinate and far too compassionate for his own good, but Hook respected his abilities. Sneered at his professional practices, but grudgingly respected the fact that the Autobot had more experience in general healthcare than Hook's own specialization had given him, even during the war when surgeons had been pressed into medic duties. The Chief Medical Officer would do just fine as Hook's parole officer. Ratchet had been his boss for vorns already. On a professional level, it sort of made things easier to have all the authority centralized into one mech.

It was just all the _rest_ of Hook's life that'd gone to the smelter as soon as things changed. The idea of navigating a life outside of the surgery theatre without ironclad directives pushing him along sent frizzes of fear through him. It wasn't just the way his back felt like a target for the Prime's ire, now, or how he had no idea how to deal with other mechs without Kup humbling him every other word. He felt bizarrely shaky. His gestaltmates' terror kept eroding whatever confidence he could assemble, and there was no outside force to distract him from their boxes, the little prison boxes, the closed walls around their sparks that were connected to his spark -

No. He ripped himself out of the fear, surprised at how much effort it took.

He turned his head and let his visor skim over the decorations along one wall: old certificates and accolades. Ha, Hook had once had just as many, possibly more even. He had been, and still was, the best at his job. Better even than Ratchet? Possibly. At least in surgical specialty. His accomplishments in operations had been the stuff of medical legend

A soft burst of static drew his attention back to the mech in question, and the tiny swell of self-confidence that'd temporarily warmed his spark disappeared back into the fear. No matter how many more awards he'd once received, it didn't change the fact that Hook was no longer anyone's superior.

"I was wondering," blue optics narrowed ever so slightly, obviously wary of whatever favour or demand the ex-Decepticon had thought up, "if you are aware of where any of these rumours could have originated from?"

Ratchet's expression closed down into a professional mask. It still betrayed some puzzlement, but more unease. "What rumors?"

That sounded disturbingly like the Autobot was dodging his question. A lump of embarrassment lodged in Hook's throat for having to say it out loud, but a chill of fear rippled down his back at the same time. Ratchet could be tactful with patients, but he was rarely anything but bluntly up-front with his subordinates. His question could be true ignorance, but the Constructicon didn't think so. Anyone who'd ever stepped foot in an infirmary knew that they were gossip-hubs. Mechs with nothing to do but recover from injuries distracted themselves from their pain by dissecting whatever scraps of information or speculation were currently floating around. Nurses and labtechs were horrid little enablers of that practice, and medics, while held to higher standards of personal conduct, were still immersed in the whispers the moment they entered the medbay.

All that gossip funneled upward. If anyone knew what was being said about Hook in the city right now, it was the Autobot Chief Medical Officer.

"There are rumors that Kup took...physical liberties with me," the surgeon stated carefully, making sure to not touch on what that could possibly entail. That was not a discussion he even remotely wanted to open the door to. Just - no. Maroon the Moron's source of information had compared him to _Starscream_, of all mechs, indicating that the rumors painted graphic stories about Kup _interfacing_ with him. Hook sincerely hoped that'd been a mistake of overly-hopeful interpretation by Moron's obviously dysfunctional interfacing equipment, because the idea of being ordered to Kup's berth made him want to purge. Then violently dissemble whomever thought he was that weak.

Hook: ex-Elite Decepticon officer, Constructicon, surgeon. A rape victim. That just wasn't believable. Was it?

Primus, he hoped not. Vague rumors about being slapped around by his Mas - ex-parole officer were bad enough. At least those were true, as much as he'd deny them in public. Rumors of rape implied that he was believed to be weak enough not to stand up to a yet-lower form of abuse, however, and that was going to open a can of issues he really, really did not want to deal with. If those were the rumors, however…no wonder the other ex-Decepticons had looked at him that way. Decepticons went after the weak. It was a tactic of attack, and an accepted method of advancement. Dominate the weaker mech and take what one wanted from him.

He looked at his new parole officer and prayed that the rumors weren't so low. He didn't want to talk about this at all, but if they could just skim over what'd been whispered, maybe he could find the source and end the whole matter quickly and quietly.

Ratchet sat back in his chair, hands separating and coming down hard on the armrests. He stared hard at the ex-'Con standing in front of him for a long moment, then turned his head and blew air out his vents in a defeated sigh. "Yeah. I heard those rumors too, although they were a lot more detailed than that."

Hook's spark _froze_. Detailed?! Oh, no. No, Ratchet, they really didn't want to venture into any territory that required speaking of details. But the medic wouldn't have brought up details unless they were relevant, because quite obviously neither one of them wanted to have this conversation!

"How so?" he managed, not quite as casual as he might have wished. In fact, not casual at all.

His supervisor wasn't managing the casual thing so well, either, so his tight, choked voice passed unnoticed. "Frankly," the Autobot said, looking at everything but him, "I'd rather not say. I, uh, look," the medic's optics slid past him, "whatever you do in your off-duty time is up to you, but I'd rather not hear about it if it really involves getting turned over someone's knee and - "

"Ratchet!" Hook jolted in place, visor wide enough to send his outer optical sensors strobing. "I - Sir! That's," frighteningly accurate, "entirely inappropriate!"

Blue optics refocused onto his face as the medic's shoulders lifted in a small shrug. "You did ask."

That wasn't the point - well, actually, it was entirely the point, but still...to hear it put like that? Certainly not encouraging.

Ratchet didn't look away this time as he folded his hands on his desk. "Nonetheless, whether the rumours have any truth to them or not, I would prefer **not** to know." The faint shudder wouldn't have been noticeable except that Hook had every sensor focused on his superior.

"I." There wasn't much he could say to that. Shrieking denials had certainly never worked for Starscream, after all. "Yes, Sir." Obviously, it was time to fall back on protocol, ease back to a nice, professional tone, and try to ignore the conflicting emotions squeezing around his spark. Relief and disappointment mingled in equal measure.

Objectively speaking, that could have gone better. He'd had the hope, although he'd tried not to think of it that way, that Ratchet would take over the conversation and tell him what to do afterward. That apparently wasn't going to happen. Things could have gone a lot worse, however. The head medic could have picked up on the half-admission of fighting and thrown him into prison; instead, it seemed that he had no intention of riding the surgeon's aft with the rulebook. That actually boded well for future professional or legal difficulties.

But Hook hadn't expected the outright dismissal and distaste in the other medic's voice at even the thought of anything beyond the workplace or parole duties. Ratchet wanted not a single hint of the Constructicon's personal life. That was…problematic, and the surgeon's spark fluttered anxiously in his chamber as the isolation closed in. No intervention from this angle, and only the fear all around.

If he'd had a Plan A, at that point he'd have thrown it out. Along with most of the alphabet, honestly, because he hadn't realized how much he'd based his tentative hopes on Ratchet helping him until that was no longer an option. Frag him.

"That didn't answer my question, however," Hook said, briskly sweeping the far-too-personal details back into the shadows polite mechs didn't peer into. Pushing the issue would only get him smacked down further. Time to backpedal to a critical matter they _could_ talk about. "I was hoping you might have some information on where these," true, "slanderous stories are originating from. As you just demonstrated, this is a matter of some urgency." He dryly gave a nod to the Conversation That Hadn't Happened. "I'd rather my name not be associated with activities that," only Kup could make him participate in, "could damage my professional reputation."

"I can see why you might want to prevent that," Ratchet said, just as dry, and his expressive hands turned up in a gesture of ignorance. "You're out of luck. I don't know."

_Frag_ it. Hook had been certain _Ratchet_ had been the source, oddly enough. Standards of conduct aside, the mean sense of humor and the medic's controlling position in the gossip-chain could have at least started the ball rolling. If not him, then who?! "When did you first hear about this?" he demanded, upset at having a solution yanked out of reach yet again. Could nothing go right this orn?

The flare of temper got an unimpressed raised optic ridge in return. "I know what you're thinking, and it still won't help you. I heard it first from Rodimus when he originally told me about starting the transfer of parole duties."

The Constructicon's temper came to a screeching halt like truck at a red light. And, like a fully-loaded truck, things went flying everywhere. His thoughts scattered off in a dozen directions, unable to pick just one.

Wait. Ratchet had heard the rumors from _Rodimus Prime_? Which meant...Hook didn't even know what. On one hand, Rodimus looked up to Kup on a near godlike level, which meant that the Prime must believe the stories were true if he were spreading them. That made this even more strange because the ancient rustbucker had been the baby Prime's mentor since long before Earth. On the other hand, _Rodimus_ had basically spread rumors about Kup doing something that could get him brought in front of the Council. _At best_. It made no sense.

Hook had known that playing Kup's mindfrag games would get them both into serious trouble if they were caught. It's why they'd always stayed behind closed doors. Outside of the old mech's quarters, Hook had obeyed the slagger like he would any officer set over him. Okay, so he might have jumped a bit higher and quicker when ordered to do so by Kup, but that wasn't anything to betray in public what he was ordered to do in private! They'd both been aware of the consequences, but also that those consequences would cost Hook more in humiliation than they would Kup's actual rank.

The rumors, however, seemed far more serious. They took Hook's involvement almost out of the picture, recasting him from _'participant in'_ to _'victim of'_ a sick game. It was still humiliating - more so, in fact, because it made him appear even weaker- but that took the consequences off him. There had always been a threat of repercussions from the Autobots, but this gossip made no sense. These were rumors, not criminal charges. If Rodimus Prime believed the rumors enough to remove Kup as Hook's parole officer and spread the word about what may-or-may-not have happened, then why wasn't the Prime bringing his mentor up on charges? Or was that the answer right there?

Ratchet gave him a pointed look. "If we're through with this meeting?"

Hook nodded hastily, turning and moving back out into the medbay. He had enough thoughts whirling about in his head; anything else he could get from the head medic would likely just muddle him further. The rest of his shift went by almost in a haze as he tried to puzzle out why Rodimus Prime would spread what the Autobots had to view as slanderous rumors. It made no sense, no sense at all.

He wasn't even sure how he made it back to his tiny, cramped quarters at shift-end. Everything had descended into a mush of light and color and sensation that made no sense, because nothing made sense right now and Hook hadn't the slightest idea of how to fix it. He sat on his uncomfortable berth and stared into space as he thought.

Aside from the rumors, the meeting had settled one issue definitively: Ratchet clearly wanted nothing to do with him. That much had been obvious out of the gate, thank you very much.

That left him right back where he'd been last time he'd sat here. His schedule yawned achingly free of assignments or responsibilities until his next duty shift. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do. The longer that remained true, the more he obsessed over it. The thought of staying in his empty room all nightcycle long was...pressure. Building pressure.

Fear seized him. Alone. He was alone again.

The walls were in too tight. Each vent he took felt like it was as heavy as Cybertron itself, and Hook curled his hands into fists to try to steady himself. It didn't work.

It didn't even register what he was feeling for a stupidly long time. There was a crushing pressure of pain and terror around his spark, but that was always there. It was unremarkable in its constant presence. He barely recognized how his reaction to it had changed once his coping mechanisms were taken away.

His gestaltlinks didn't come with an _Off_ switch. Not even death ended them. They just led out into nothing, sucking away at the borders of his mind like miniature vacuums. If his mind were a spacecraft, Scrapper and Bonecrusher's dead links would be open hatches voiding internal atmosphere out into the cold, airless black of space. Mixmaster, Scavenger, and Long Haul were fires onboard, as contrast. They still burnt up the atmosphere, but they were active and terrifying because they threatened the whole spacecraft.

The lone Constructicon shook himself, pulling out the extended metaphor with the strange feeling that things had somehow..._blurred_ while he'd been thinking. It felt weirdly difficult to focus. He reset his visor, frowning at his clenched hands, but the physical check of his optical sensors came back clear. He rubbed his fingertips together, unsettled when the sensation felt just as abnormal as his vision. The sensors were all online, but he felt one step removed from them.

Detached. He felt detached. Crushed and afraid, but numbly separated from the alarm.

He checked the time and nearly jumped out of his own armor. What - ?! When had - ?!

A whole joor had passed.

Hook combed through his system logs. Nothing came up as overtly wrong. According to them, his body hadn't done anything to be upset about. In fact, according to them, he'd done nothing but sit there and stare at nothing. For hours. He didn't remember it. He hadn't felt his joints slowly stiffen, or his fuel gauge start to bleat warnings. He had just sat there, unfeeling and unmoving, for an entire joor.

He was either paralyzed with indecision, or going catatonic.

Maybe it was time he called Kup. This was…this was getting out of control. This wasn't just being afraid of the future or some rumors. He didn't know what was happening, and he didn't know how to counter it.

Except that calling Kup meant that he would have to tell the old Autobot what was wrong, and dealing with an ex-Decepticon's problems wasn't Kup's job anymore. It was Ratchet's. It was Ratchet whom he _should_ go to. Ratchet whom he _should_ inform, because that was Ratchet's responsibility. Not Kup's. Not anymore.

But Ratchet would probably look at him in that condescending, '_Why the frag are you telling me this?_' way of his, and it wouldn't do him a lick of good anyway. The mental problems of a parolee weren't likely to get much sympathy, especially when this particular parolee had only escaped a spark-box by promising _not_ to be a problem. In Ratchet's place, Hook would just recommend the glitching mech be taken off parole and put with the rest of his surviving gestalt in prison. Problem solved.

If he was lucky, Hook would be sent back to his quarters. Alone. Even more humiliated than before. But not in a spark-box.

Calling Ratchet really didn't seem like a good option, in that light. And with Ratchet...it was different, and oh, how that rankled to admit. It wasn't personal. There was no game to snare the Constructicon's mind and tear him out of his gestaltlinks into purely personal feelings. Hook hadn't felt anything on his own beyond fear since the parole officer switch. It was difficult to recall that he _could_ feel things other than terror. Forced emotions - humiliation, hate, and denial - but not just fear.

His hands clenched and unclenched on his thighs. His gauge bleated at him, and his body was stiff with inactivity. He needed to fuel, recharge, and get ready for his next on-shift cycle in the medbay. These were requirements, things he had to do, but they didn't happen. All he could do was sit and stare at the wall. The pain-not-pain and terror going through him immobilized him. Mesmerized him. It kept his aft firmly seated on the uncomfortable berth as he stared and stared at the wall.

He wasn't sure if he should be angry. It felt like he should, like he should feel something other than the nearly debilitating mess in his processor. He could feel his gestaltmate's emotions so clearly. They were unconscious, seeping up into his spark from below his ability to filter outside influences out. It wasn't deliberate, or at least he didn't think so. His morbid research into Shockwave's boxing procedure after the Combaticons were revived indicated that mechs were reduced to little more than emotions and vague awareness of their surroundings. The prisoners knew they were imprisoned, but it was as if it were a bad dream. A horrible, extended nightmare during an extremely long defragmentation cycle, without the option to wake up.

Receiving input from his gestalt wasn't new, but not like this. Not a constant, unfiltered barrage from their subconscious minds and sparks. He felt them like he'd never not felt them, unable to stop them, and they overpowered him. The flood left him just sitting there, unable to move or get up, held in thrall by his own spark even when his tank pinged him as dangerously low. Each klik that went by felt like a breem, and each breem, a joor. The whole thing made him a captive in his own body, and why? Why this? Why him? Why now?

Because of Kup. Always because of Kup. Everything that had happened since Hook had been spared the box prison had happened because of Kup.

His scheduled duty shift started. His time to report to Ratchet went by, the first time he'd missed reporting to his on-shift supervisor since the parole stipulations for his Autobot-given job had been laid implacably down as the new laws for his life.

His body felt old. Forgotten. His processors kept fumbling simple commands, slipping on automatic functions. Sub-processors fired random files, writing aimless code that did nothing but fill his buffer with lines of worthless data. An alert popped up, and, disconcerted, Hook concentrated on forcing his ventilation system to operate again. It'd shut down and been on the verge of taking three connected systems with it. He bent, trying to keep that focus to make himself move. His joints wheezed as stiff hydraulics were forced back to operating pressure.

Was this is a physical problem? He hadn't had to focus like this since - since Kup had backhanded him the first time, two orn after the Autobots had boxed his surviving teammates.

A gasp of shock made it out when he bent far enough forward to fall off the berth. The side of his helm smacked into the floor, almost hard enough to crack his visor, and the Constructicon shuddered as the world came rushing back in around him. He swept his arm out almost at random, not really thinking, and grunted as the side struck one of the berth legs. Again, the smack of near-pain served to clear his head. He squinted across the floor and repeated the move, harder.

His forearm dented, searing pain in clear paths through his processors, and he dragged himself to his knees. He shook his head, feeling leaden yet frail as tinfoil at the same time. It was strange, as though the physical sensation had reminded him his body existed. He balled his hands and hit the floor as hard as he could, but the sting across sensitive knuckles was temporary. He could feel how temporary the solution was even as he repeated it.

His body was here. His spark was inside it, not in a prison-box. He wasn't just a part of his gestalt. He was Hook. Hook was here, in this room, in this body, right here and now.

His visor dimmed and brightened again. Here. But for how long?

Fears for his future suddenly swarmed his mind, a thousand _'what if'_s that had no good answers. How long until a complaint was again filed against him? He was already going to be cited for being late to his shift. More than late, at this point. That was small change compared to what would happen if Grapple and Hoist filed another complaint, however. This time the Constructicon had no defense, no one who would even think about going to bat for him. Ratchet certainly wouldn't, that much was abundantly clear.

No, he couldn't start thinking about that now. There was something more important than a hypothetical complaint to deal with right now.

Hook looked at his desk. He needed to...what? Primus, his thoughts felt sluggish.

He brought his fist down on his thigh, grabbing the _clang_ of impact like a lifeline. His intakes sputtered slightly, but he ignored how difficult it was to fight off the fear. He couldn't ignore it, but he could do something else.

The Constructicon used the hand on his thigh to push up to his feet and stagger to the desk chair. He had to call the medbay. By now he was really, truly late, but if he could call in an adequate reason, Ratchet might excuse him. It was either that or an official reprimand on his file.

He sat down hard, soaking up the jolt as it traveled up his back. The chair was real. He was _here_. He spread his hands over the console, absorbing the textures, the smooth surface, the ridges of the keys. He…could do this. He _had_ to. Everything had changed, but this one thing was the same. Hook could not go into that box. He had to report because if he didn't…if he let this relatively small thing go, it would become something larger. If he didn't deal with this now, Kup wasn't here to keep him out of the blasted box this time.

He keyed his access code in and frowned pensively at the blank screen. Calling off a shift - late, which was even worse - was really not going to give his new parole officer a good impression of his work ethic. It was too late to reschedule. There were surgeons and medics available to cover missed shifts, but a swapped schedule kept scheduled duty shifts at roughly the same time. Calling in someone to cover a missed shift meant somebody got paid overtime. That messed with the facility's budget, and missed shifts were duly regarded as bad etiquette for a professional. It wasn't the kind of thing he'd want on his record even if he weren't on parole.

What could he even give as an excuse? He'd recharged late? He hadn't even recharged, and he felt every breem of that missed defragment time. He'd zoned out, mind bleeding away through his trapped spark.

Somehow, that just didn't sound like a viable excuse. It was a little late to start showing post-traumatic symptoms to his gestaltmates' deaths and imprisonments. Ratchet would never take such an idea seriously.

...although it certainly struck a chord in Hook the moment he thought it. Could this all be a delayed symptom of what had happened to his team? It fit, the longer he thought about it, but what had happened to trigger these symptoms now? What had been delaying it all this while? It'd been _vorns_ since the trial verdicts and the spark-boxes, even longer since Scrapper and Bonecrusher had died. Nothing had changed in all that time!

Nothing but his parole officer, that was. Hook's empty tanks rasped into painful twists of metal inside him. Nothing had changed but the rope of duty, pain, and humiliation that'd hung about his neck since his prison cell door had opened and an old green, sadistic Autobot had walked in to claim him.

He put his hand on the comm. console's keys but had no idea whose number he needed to input more urgently. Or which one he wanted to input, period. Even though he knew that Ratchet was the one now holding his future, he balked at making that call. There was a fair chance the medic might not opt for the simpler solution of just boxing him up, but did he dare risk that? He knew already that his new parole officer didn't want anything to do with him outside of the medbay. Something like this? Definitely not to do with medical duty.

His fingers twitched as they hovered over the keypad, numbers he'd long since memorized itching to tap themselves out. Numbers needed for Hook to call Kup. It'd be so easy. Habitual, even. The septic, diseased creep of fear across his spark could be countered. He knew it could. There was one person that had never failed to provoke a reaction in him, even when he'd still been in statis cuffs sitting in his cell meeting someone he'd known then only as a grizzled sergeant older than most stars. Shaking with overwhelming terror hidden behind an impassive mask, Hook had still keenly felt the sting of burnt pride when he'd been ordered - _ordered!_ - to address that strange Autobot as 'sir'.

Kup had known him for all of a klik and already been able to flay his spark down to bare emotions. Now, three vorns later, Hook futilely denied that he wanted to call that same Autobot and beg forgiveness, to verbally prostrate himself until the old mech ground him into the floor. Each and every moment of embarrassment and self-conscious cringing tore at his core, his spark, but the feelings were _his_. Not the devastating emotions of his gestaltmates; his own emotions. Real and heavy and _there_ in his chest.

And still he sat, hands still hovering. His vents came in short pants as his circuitry heated up to the melting point and _still_ Hook couldn't make his fingers move that last tiny bit to the numbers. His mouth opened and armor plates flared wide to try to let cool air flow over overheating components. Each vent in was a struggle. His visor stared down at his hand, wondering how it had gotten so far away. His sensor net registered static and the buzz of incomplete connections as he fought with his processor to press the digits down.

He was so focused on trying to move his own fingers that when the comm. console beeped at him, it shocked his systems into freezing. The line opened automatically to show an angry Ratchet on the other end.

"Oh, so you _are_ alive." Flat. Furious.

Hook stared at the screen, mind blanking out from the sheer unexpectedness. What? This…was bad. His spark pulsed a cold terror through his lines as his mind snapped back to reality, finally catching up from the lag.

"I was told I wouldn't have a problem with you," his pissed-off supervisor all but growled. "You promised me this yourself."

The Constructicon's mouth worked. What did he say now? What _could_ he say to that? What would Ratchet do?

Blue optics narrowed, suspicious of the normally-snappish surgeon's silence, and Ratchet leaned toward the screen a little. One thing the war had done for medics was give them experience diagnosing strange behavior by whatever information was available, and this medic was the best the Autobots had. He picked out the odd tremor at the corner of Hook's mouth and the dim red visor, put some facts together, and made an educated guess. "When did you last refuel?"

The sudden cool, professional concern threw the Constructicon hard. He wasn't exactly processing at full speed right now. How had he -

"Hook!"

He actually had to stop and think. When he did, his empty tanks started shrieking. "Two orns," he said without thinking, then shook his head. "That's...no excuse. Sir, I apologize. I believe I am suffering some sort of error." One hand rose to tap the side of his helm.

Smoothing his expression into something flat and bland was actually easier when he cringed inside. That, he had experience with. Covering fear was more difficult. Panic smothered for a moment under singed pride, however, and he managed a suitably neutral expression. Implying that something could possibly be off in _his_ processors was an insult he could barely get out without immediately grimacing.

Perhaps that was why Ratchet bought it. Hook, after all, wasn't one for insinuating that his mind wasn't better than all others, at all times. "Gauge error?"

"Unknown," the Constructicon lied, slipping into the falsehood with an ease that woke a shiver of unease deep in his internal systems. Lying this way would have had Kup beating a retraction and sniveling apology out of him midway through. "I believe it might be a wider software error. Anything related to time has glitched. I did not realize the shift had started until your call came through." He inclined his head, trying to appear suitably chastened. "Again, I apologize. I can report to finish the shift as soon as I refuel - "

"No." Ratchet scowled as he cut the offer off. "I already called in someone. You should come in to complete a system scan, however. I'll log it with the official report as mitigating circumstances."

The rush of relief nearly floored him. Not only had his supervisor bought it, but he was going to excuse the Constructicon on record! "I'd like to try a deep defragment run first," Hook said, frowning thoughtfully. "I...have not recharged well lately."

That got a sharp look, but even the head medic couldn't argue that. As much as he liked having patients in the medbay where he could run scans personally, simple solutions were often the best kinds. Defragmentation cycles were a mech's default program watchdog. The recharge excuse sounded a little out of character for _Hook_, of all mechs, but the ex-'Con had managed to put just enough uncomfortable undertones in the admission to discourage further questioning. It helped that Ratchet really wanted to know nothing about his personal life - and, well, he'd been hearing the rumors, too. They were enough to throw off his recharge cycles, too.

"Fine. But you better contact me first thing after it's finished. Understood?" There was a pointed look in the blue optics that Hook knew better than to challenge, but right now he had a full orn to try to sort himself out. At the moment, that was enough to make falsifying a report later worth the hassle.

"Of course, Ratchet. Thank you." The words weren't just rote this time, and Hook felt genuine relief wash over him even as he winced inwardly from the fact that he'd lied to the medic. Kup wouldn't have stood for it, period. Ratchet didn't care enough to look.

With a final grumble, the chief medic cut the connection.

That left the Constructicon on his own again, in his quarters, feeling like his mind was draining down and out through his spark. The brief surge of fresh panic had broken the drag down, letting him bob back to the surface and recognize how far down he'd been pulled, but that still gave him no power to prevent another downward spiral. Defragment might help, but he was more concerned that he wouldn't wake up again if he recharged now. What options did that leave him?

He rested his elbows on the desk and fisted his hands, pressing them against his visor until the optical sensors underneath strobed pressure warnings. He was here. He was Hook. He was here. He wasn't in a prison-box. The pressure and terror around his spark were not his. He was here. He was Hook.

The mantra helped him focus, but the bleating of his tank helped more. Hunger had become almost painful as auxiliary systems began to falter.

The Constructicon lurched to his feet, feeling frightfully unsteady. His extremities all felt slightly numb, as if they didn't quite register with his CPU as _his_. It made walking more of a hazardous adventure than he'd have liked, but at least concentrating on staying upright and walking in a mostly straight line kept him from lapsing back into that spiral into numb nothing. His gestaltmate's terror kept beating at his mind, dragging down his spark, but he managed to stay afloat.

He drifted through the common room, not even aware of anyone else there. The red Minibot with the loud mouth could have suggested he do something vile with a chair, and Hook wouldn't have heard him. He was doing his level best to just appear normal, which was difficult when he wanted to collapse to the floor and hold himself, as if the turmoil in his spark casing could be so easily solved. He had no idea that the few Autobots who noticed him were eying him askance for the two orns of energon rations he drew, not the detached, nearly vacant look on his face.

The cubes were sucked down efficiently, without even a twitch of distaste for the ration grade quality. He just consumed them and kept walking, almost blind to where he was going until he was there.

Hook stopped and looked blankly at the door, because of course he would end up here. His feet didn't need instructions to walk here. It was habit.

An out-of-date habit. This wasn't a door he needed to knock on anymore. There were no more reports to deliver. No more accountability. No more interventions, either.

He'd been reassigned to Ratchet, and that was the problem, wasn't it? That's where everything had gone wrong. That's when the terror of the unknown had started swamping him, rendering him useless, and once he was useless, he was worthless. But Ratchet didn't give a scrap about forcing Hook back into service. Ratchet just wanted the results; he wanted nothing to do with the process.

And it was a process. Hook's mind rebelled against the very idea, denying the obvious, but his pride wasn't enough to blot out the past three vorns. No matter how he shoved his dependency away, it kept returning. The physical sting of pain, the mental burn of shame - they'd been what had kept his gestaltmates' overwhelming crush of claustrophobic nonstop emotion from pulling him under. Hook could see it now, despite not wanting to. He could see it, and he wanted it back so very badly.

Kup's disciplines had been brutal, but they'd done more than keep him from tripping over parole stipulations and work regulations. The old sergeant had kept him safe from Rodimus Prime's impulsive rages, and yes, Hook desperately wanted that safety. He wanted the security of knowing someone was monitoring his behavior and keeping him from arrogantly walking head-first into a prison sentence. He knew he had issues when it came to working with others. It'd never been a problem among the Decepticons because, well, Scrapper had mediated as the leader of the Constructicons. The other Constructicons had been there as well, distracting and grounding him, not bleeding him dry of everything but stark terror.

Scrapper was dead. The living Constructicons radiated nothing but fear that threatened to trap him in the gestaltlinks. The part of him that realized what was going on struggled fruitlessly against his own spark.

That part of him was what had woken to play the old Autobot's sick mindgames every time. It'd greeted every twisting dig of shame with humility and released every bit of control with a vast sense of relief. It'd recognized Kup's deliberate, methodological, consistent abuse as distraction and salvation from its innate weakness.

Hook hated Kup, but it was becoming painfully clear to him that he needed the fragger. His pride had prevented him from seeing that the self-confident, fiercely independent Hook of the Decepticons had been spark-crippled at the end of the war. Now the pride was a very thin veneer over Hook the ex-Decepticon, a dependent mess of a mech who had nothing to fall back on but his surgical abilities. Which were of no help whatsoever in this situation.

He...needed Kup. He needed things to be as they were. He needed the servitude and the game's Gordian knot of rules. He needed the rusted sadist to resume his post as parole officer, because Ratchet was professionally proficient and completely unsuitable in every other aspect.

The only reason Kup had been removed, at least as far as Hook knew, were the rumors. That was easy enough to fix. Humiliating because it would bring them out into the open to be discussed, but worth it if it would stop this agonizing slide into numb fear. Kup could speak with his protégé Prime, of course, and that would smooth over the worst of the stories right there. Hook himself could then testify against the rumors, and that would take care of the rest. Officially, what else needed to be done about the wild stories? If Kup spoke directly to Prime and his 'victim' denied that the old mech had harmed him, that shifted blame to whatever troublemaker had first brought such gossip to the Prime's attention in the first place.

Everything would go back to normal. It would be okay.

So Hook stared at the door for a moment more, composing his argument, and then lifted his hand to touch the door chime.


	8. Captive communication difficulties

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warnings: all still apply**

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**[* * * * *]**

**Part Eight: What's a captive to do if the captor refuses to take him back?**

**[* * * * *]**

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It pinged. Door chimes did that. Nothing special there. After such a build-up over the course of two orns, actually following through on coming here was throwing Hook off. It just…wasn't following the script he'd written in his head.

The door opening was something of an anti-climax. Kup didn't fling it open. He couldn't have, anyway, because automatic doors didn't do more than slide on their tracks. For some reason, Hook had been expecting a dramatic scene, maybe a fit of rage, and doors slamming open seemed to be how those worked on the vidshow dramas the nurses kept leaving on in the breakroom. Turned out that reality wasn't like a drama. Maybe it was a sign of how bad Hook's social interaction abilities were if he was taking advice from lousily-acted vidshows.

The old Autobot didn't look surprised or angry. He wasn't overcharged and certainly didn't seem about to throw a punch or start a fight out here in the hall. He looked like he didn't give a frag.

He took a lengthy look at the hulking ex-Decepticon standing frozen in the hall outside his door and grunted, as if vaguely dissatisfied by what he saw. "What?"

Hook thought that he might have preferred a public, highly emotional confrontation. He was better at reacting after someone took the lead, these orns. "Ah." Stalling, stalling...what did people _do_ in these kind of situations?! "I think..." What _did_ he think? "We need to talk. Sir." There. That was suitably neutral and covered whatever might happen.

Except that the age-pale optics were looking at him indifferently, and Kup merely shifted to lean against the doorjamb like he was settling in for a while. "Alright. Talk."

Oooh, no. Out here?! No, no, no.

The Constructicon gathered up his scattered thoughts and tattered courage. He wasn't Kup's parolee anymore. He could talk with the mech like a regular 'bot. That also meant he had the right to the same courtesy offered to a guest. Er. Well, if the guest was also a mech's ex-parolee ex-'Con come calling. Even outside a vidshow drama, that seemed a recipe for an awkward situation.

"May I come in?" he requested, hating how stiff it came out.

His head cleared a bit when those blue optics swept him from helm to feet. For a second, his fuel pump sped up and his spark felt something - different. Something distinctly separate from the stupefying clutch of his teammates. That didn't help his dignity one bit, realizing that his tentative theory about needing Kup's control had just been proven right. The old Autobot had just judged him, critically holding him up against unknown standards, and Hook snapped out of near-fugue into full alert in reaction. Without even thinking about it, he was almost quivering at attention to meet whatever that judgment would be.

Apathetic optics narrowed, but Kup straightened up again. One hand gestured, welcoming his ex-parolee into his quarters, mockingly polite. "Sure, why not?"

Hook's pride screamed, and the ex-Decepticon hesitated on the threshold as it thrashed through confirmation of that degrading, terrible _need_. Which only served to clear his head more, prove the theory further, and crush that pride a little more brutally. He needed this.

He didn't want to be dependent. He didn't want to have to admit to how badly he needed this joint-creaky old sadist to dominate him, mindfrag him, make him play a perverse game he could never win, and leave him groveling on the floor in defeat. But if the choice was asking Kup to take him back or sliding too deep into his gestaltlink to live...urgh. It wasn't much of a choice.

He went in.

Now the question was what he should do. If this was a normal day, Option #1 would come into play: waiting for Kup to tell him what to do. Possibly kneeling if he anticipated punishment or had to beg favor. Being that this wasn't a normal day, there was Option #2: just raising the issue and talking it over like two equal 'bots capable of sorting things out with words and logic.

Hook's over-stressed processor went with Option #3: paralyzed indecision and standing there like a moron.

Kup gave him a long look, bland and bored, as if he'd expected nothing more of the surgeon. Because, yeah, all the talent in the cosmos inside the surgery theatre couldn't make Hook any better at dealing with his own screwed up head outside of it. This was not news to the old Autobot. "Sit down," he ordered, pointing at a chair, and the Constructicon obeyed. His relief at Kup taking charge was painfully visible.

The green mech took the other chair and sat there waiting for him to speak, however. Just waiting.

Hook shifted, perching uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. It hadn't been made for someone with prominent back kibble, but his discomfort had less to do with the chair and more to do with the company. The silent, out-of-character company. He didn't know what to do sitting equal to the old mech. On his knees, yes. That was relatively easy. He knew what to do when he was on his knees before Kup, because it was Kup who put him there. But sitting on the other side of the table from the ancient clank unsettled him more than submission ever had. He shifted again, looking down at the table.

The table with the scratches that his armor and his fingers had put into it. He knew this table quite intimately. He'd assembled it. He'd picked it up at the shipping dock and transported it here, then set it up. That'd been memorable, mostly because he'd spent the six orns before it'd arrived serving as a living piece of furniture. Staying quiet and perfectly still for joors at a time as Kup's temporary table had been his penance after he'd broken the previous table. Well, he hadn't _broken_ it, precisely. It'd collapsed under his weight, which explained why this table was much sturdier. He'd been smacked down onto it enough times to know it was capable of standing up to whatever his Mas - Kup put him through on top of it.

It also had scuffed polish. He itched to bring it back to a shine. It'd been two orns since he'd last been in these quarters, and four since the last time he'd been ordered to clean them. That was too long. There was dust. Dust!

Funny, cleaning his own quarters was something he only remembered to do when under duress, but right now all he could think about was getting out a vac-rag and wiping down the slagging table. Sometimes, his perfectionism glitch was the worst thing in his life.

He flicked a look up, away from the table. He couldn't tell himself anymore than he wasn't waiting for orders.

Kup just sat there. Waiting.

_Shift. Shift_. The dust bothered him immensely. Hook clasped and unclasped his hands in his lap, imagining polishing the table clean. But…orders. He'd look a blasted fool if he just got up and started cleaning. A daft-in-the-head mental patient, a perfectionist with no concept of respecting another mech's home. As opposed to someone obeying an order, of course, but that order had to be given first before he could follow it.

He glanced up again.

Nope. Still waiting.

Primus frag the mech! Couldn't he see Hook was - was -

What was he doing, anyway?

Waiting for orders. And fidgeting with the brimming desire to obey them, whatever they might be.

A careful observer could see when a mech brought up the time function on an optical heads-up display. Since Hook was staring at Kup in helpless appeal by now, he definitely saw it. The old clank was checking the time. Uh. That was not a good sign.

_Fidget. Fidgetshiftfidgetshiftshift. Fidget_.

Talking. It couldn't be that difficult, right? He'd had an argument set up before he'd even pinged. If he could only remember what it was that he'd wanted to say…and unstick his vocalizer to get the words out in a coherent manner…and be convincing, which wasn't nearly as easy as any of this sounded. Not that any of this was easy, because the lack of any of the above happening was making him shift about on the chair even more. Crawling unease physically chilled him, flushing coolant through his lines and cueing his plating to clamp close to his frame as if to protect him from dropping temperature.

The cold cleared his head, the clearest it'd been in two orns, and he still couldn't think of a single thing to say. This did not bode well for the conversation. Yet he had to say something!

"Sir...I..."

Hook knew, _knew_ in the depths of his threatened spark what he'd come here for. He really, truly didn't want to think about it directly, but he'd kind of edged his way to it sidelong. His pinned pride still weakly fought against outright admitting it, especially out loud, but there was no more denying what this fragging mech had patiently broken him down to over the course of the past three vorns. Three vorns of careful, meticulous training to be a pet, and it'd worked. The Constructicon couldn't deal with life without someone's foot on his neck.

That submission, that desire to relinquish all control to Kup: it was an ember that burnt brightly in his whole being. He _wanted_ to be told what to do. He wanted to be punished for misbehaving, because it gave him not only guidelines for future encounters, but the safety of having someone there who would be able to tell him what he'd done wrong. The feelings that Kup evoked in him were full, not the shades of terror that he felt from his imprisoned gestaltmates, but vibrant and heavy and real and _his_.

He needed that. He _wanted_ that. Kup's ownership gave him safety, and Hook just needed to find a way to prostrate himself to the old 'bot in a manner that would get him accepted back.

The ancient scrapheap was no help. He just sat there, watching him. The only movement he made was the half-chew movement of his jaw shifting the cy-gar out, then back again between drags of the chemical dosage.

"I need..." The surgeon did need. He needed this cranky green mech more than he needed anything else. Submitting himself to Kup's hands was finding external safety and stability that his broken spark completely lacked.

Actually saying the words out loud was choking him on his own Primus-fragged pride, however.

"It's not working out," he got out in one rush, taking another tack with a sudden blurt of words he could only hope wouldn't run out before they convinced the old clank. "Ratchet as my supervisor and parole officer," he backtracked immediately, trying not to sound as disjointed as he felt under that waiting gaze. "I need - I would like to resolve the matter of these," a squirm tried skitter down his backstruts, and he held himself rigid to stop it, "rumors. Replacing you with Ratchet as my parole officer is only making them harder to deny. If you spoke with the Prime, we could end this before it gets out of hand. You could resume office over me, the rumors would be shown to have no foundation, and it would be over."

_'Everything would go back to how it was before,_' he didn't say. He didn't mention the orders, or the dusty table, or the fact that he wanted the blunt pain of a backhand from Kup for speaking out of turn. The argument he'd blurted out glazed entirely over the whole matter of Hook actually wanting to be under this Autobot's control, because when had that ever been openly spoken of? Kup had only ever made him acknowledge it out loud in order to grind the humiliation in deeper.

The rumors were professionally damaging, but that was hardly the matter at hand. That wasn't what he'd come here to talk about, but it sounded good now that it was out. That was enough for Hook right now.

Kup's head tilted to the side, and the aura of boredom intensified. "The rumors are true. You know it. I know it. Lotsa foundation there, if you ask me."

This time, the squirm got past him, and the Constructicon jittered in his chair before he could control himself. "Yes," he admitted helplessly. "I don't know how the Prime found out. I didn't say anything," Hook said quickly, hands raising in defense, although the older mech's expression never changed. It hadn't even occurred to him that Kup might think _he_ had started the gossip until right then, and now he ducked his head guiltily. Was that what this cold reception was about? "I wouldn't - who would I tell? I don't talk to anyone!" Was that a hint of disbelief, or just contempt? "It's my reputation on the line. I would never say anything about what you - how you - "

"About how I **what**?" the aged Autobot asked sharply, and Hook felt that tone seize his vocalizer in a chokehold. "About how I keep you in line, Decepticon? Is that what you think this's about?" He stood up, but not in the threatening way the Constructicon was used to. The looming wasn't there. The green mech turned away and meandered across the room, hands absently clasped behind his back. "You ever stop to think what this's doing to **my** rep?"

Frag. Uh, no? Concern for others really wasn't one of the surgeon's priorities. He'd thought about the weirdness of Rodimus spreading slanderous stories about his mentor, but not about what the other Autobots thought about Kup in response. He'd had the vague thought about the kind of problems it could cause, legally, but it hadn't been important in light of his own problems!

"But if you speak with the Prime, I can tell him that you're. You're not." Hook looked down at the tabletop, unable to say it. That Kup wasn't doing exactly what the rumors said, and then some? But he was. Or he had, at least, and the Constructicon wanted him so badly to do it again. All those things that a parole officer shouldn't do to his parolee, the things that Ratchet would _never_ do. Those things that Hook needed.

Not - ugh, alright, not what all the rumors brought up, but he was too disgusted to acknowledge what degenerate simpletons had apparently made up out of thin air. Only the feeble-minded would think of rape in the context of _him_. That was too…simple. Direct. It could have never broken a warrior into a pet, or at least not _this_ warrior. It was pain and humiliation, but one that Hook would have reacted violently to instead of subsiding into submission before it. Interfacing was one indignity, straightforward in its gross violation, and he'd have savaged the Autobot who tried to conquer him using it.

No, the Constructicon craved the complicated game with rules he understood without being able to articulate. He wanted the multitude of small things, humiliation by a hundred different orders that'd shivered through his defenses and made his spark throb heat across his circuits. Simple, illegal violations that'd reduced him from surgeon to servant. Orders like making him crawl to the cabinet, fetch a vac-rag, and clean the table. The things he so very badly wanted to do but needed to be commanded to do. Forced to do, because he knew the value of appearances, even when he was a terrified mess inside for lack of commands. He needed orders, because the burnt barrier of his pride had to be stomped down to bring on the trembling flare of submission he didn't want to admit - had to admit - that he craved.

"This could be over with in a few orns time," he hedged around the open legal problem, hearing the desperation in his voice and hating that it was so obvious. "It'd make a decent story to tell later," he added, wanly reaching for humor that fell very short of the mark. "You could tell everyone about the time - "

"About the time I was just about brought up on charges for breaking you?"

The Constructicon swallowed. "...yes."

"That doesn't sound like a very good story to me." Kup still wasn't looking at him, and Hook felt a distressing need to have those ice blue optics flash at him. In anger, in satisfaction, he didn't care. Ignoring him had always been a punishment, and now he knew why. Two orns without the old mech's attention had the surgeon on the edge.

"No, Sir. I suppose it doesn't," he agreed quietly. What else could he say to that?

"So then. What're you really asking me? Because if you don't have anything that **you** need to ask me, then I suggest you go back to your quarters and leave me alone." _'You.'_ Hook. Heaping the responsibility for dealing with this dilemma right back on the Constructicon, who flinched away from it. Kup knew why he was here, but because he hadn't made it clear...

Forcing to admit to what he wanted was a familiar disgrace. Explicitly spelling out his transgressions and begging for punishment had been part of the game. It was familiar, and he straightened up in his seat because he knew how to deal with that familiarity. Resetting his vocalizer and looking straight ahead, he tossed aside the niggling notion of covering up the real reason he was here. He had - reluctantly - realized that it wasn't the parole officer he wanted back. It was an excuse, sure, and a plausible cover for getting back the old mech's orders and authority, but it wasn't what Hook wanted. Kup was implying…more.

Meaning that it was up to him. Meaning he had to make a choice of his own, for once. It sounded as if, maybe, the old Autobot was demanding he explain his need, and only then would the fragger speak with the Prime. Or so Hook interpreted it to mean, but translating Kup's double-meaning mindfrag traps was always a mindfield waiting to blow up in his face.

'_You'_. That one word held such a wealth of meaning that the surgeon struggled to put more behind it. "I want...I need..." For all that he knew multiple languages, he couldn't find the words to fit. He wanted, what, an owner? A controller? A master? Was that the right word?

They all referred to the right relationship, whatever it was called. He recalled resting on pitted and rough thighs as his helm was stroked, and the turbulent drag of terror around his spark eased somewhat in response to the memory. Each pass of the older mech's hands had pulled him further into that feeling of safety that he craved. The feeling he lacked right now. The feeling Ratchet couldn't give him, and Ratchet was his parole officer, so…what he wanted couldn't be that.

What did he need? He wanted Kup as his parole officer, but only as official cover for what he really _needed_.

He vented heavily, looking everywhere but at the aged green mech across the table from him. "I need...this." There. He'd admitted his shame. He vented again, and finally looked up.

Kup looked back, raising a brow plate and puffing away on his cy-gar.

The clank wasn't going to make this easy. He never made anything easy. Apparently, he'd only be satisfied if the specifics were named, just to grind that degradation a little deeper. Hook opened his mouth, but still the words seemed to stick inside. It didn't matter how far down his pride was smashed; every time, it rebounded enough to be painful the next time Kup wanted to teach him a lesson.

But, oh, his head was clear, and the claustrophobic, slippery tunnel of fear waiting at the edge of the gestaltlinks had narrowed. Just from _talking_. For that, he'd play the rusted glitch's endless mindgames. For that, this was all worth it.

Hook hesitated an instant longer, then slid straight from the chair onto his knees. He couldn't think of an explanation, the words eluded him, but in his proper place, he didn't really need to say anything. There was only one word he needed to know. It was a massive blow to his ego, but one easier to take than floundering for inadequate admissions Kup would swat aside or make him repeat. "Master?"

"Ah, now there's the root of it," the Autobot said softly, and Hook's defeated despair gave way to a brief peek of hope as the ex-Decepticon looked up at the mech he'd named owner and Master. That hope died quickly. The old mech's expression was wry, and he met the Constructicon's look with a shake of his head. "See, that's not anything to do with me being your parole officer, Hook. That's what's gonna put me in front of a court martial, in fact. You get that?"

He strode back across the room and put his finger under Hook's chin, and the larger mech shuddered at the small touch. "You get it? Because I'm not gonna lie to Roddy. Not to him, and not to my Prime. And you," the fingers closed, and the hand on his chin shook the Constructicon for emphasis, "shouldn't have even thought about it. That slag'll come back to bite you on the aft every time."

The old, proud Autobot took a step back, and a muted protest came from the mech on his knees before him. "I'm not gonna be your parole officer again, Hook. Get that thought outta your head, because it ain't happening." His smile was crooked and just vicious enough to sting when Hook stared. "But that's not whatcha want, pet. You don't need me holding a bit of legalese over your head."

There was a long klik of silence. Hook reset his visor, but nothing changed. He didn't _understand_. Kup looked down at him, but the expectant look on his face changed slowly to disgruntlement. The Constructicon cringed on the inside to see it; once again, he'd managed to disappoint the Autobot, and this time he had no idea how.

"Y'know, nobody can be this dumb without it being intentional." The old mech shook his head and turned to quickly palm the door open. Hook spat startled static and scrambled to his feet. There was no one outside the door look in and see him on knees, but Kup looked at his flustered stance with that same expression of dissatisfied annoyance. "Come back here when you figured out what you need, not whatcha think's the answer."

"But I - "

"Out."

The Constructicon ducked his head, intimidated but confused. "You - "

"Out!"

He got out.

The door closed behind him, sliding with a total lack of drama, and he was left where he'd started. This was like some kind of cyclical nightmare. Had the Autobots already extracted his spark? Was he stuck in a prison-box beside his teammates, dreaming his terror in dim subconscious thoughts that had nowhere else to go but in circles?

Hook couldn't return to his quarters. He couldn't. There was nothing in there to distract him, and the unheard voices in his processor were too loud without anything to block them out. Not really voices, but more than just emotions. Terror, but loud and getting louder by the klik, until their fear and chaos would block out the rest of the world. He had to do something, but what the frag could he do? He'd put so much stock in Kup saving him that - now what?

He wandered through the hallway, ignoring the other mechs that skirted him. Everyone avoided the cloud of sheer depression that swarmed his EM field, keeping as far away as they could from the Constructicon. His expression was as blankly uncommunicative as always, just barely hinting at contempt for everything in general, but anyone who walked close enough got blindsided by an unexpected wave of bitter helplessness. Nobody cared enough to ask, but he got plenty of curious looks in passing. Even those who didn't brush through his field stared. He wasn't a common sight, out and about, but neither was he uncommon. It was just strange seeing him walking without a purpose.

Because that purpose had thrown him out. He was missing something, that was obvious, but he didn't know what it was that Kup wanted from him. He'd _admitted_ that he wanted the Autobot as his Master. He'd serve the mech. He just needed Kup to be his parole officer again!

Perhaps... perhaps if he went to Rodimus himself? Maybe there was something Kup wasn't telling him... okay, well, there _was_ something that Kup wasn't telling him, some solution to this problem that Hook just couldn't see. He'd thought Kup wanted his submission on top of being asked to resume his place as parole officer, but there was obviously something still missing.

It might be that the gossip had caused far for damage for Kup than Hook. He'd really only thought about repercussions for the old Autobot in terms of how the rumors were affecting him. It was possible that the damage to Kup's reputation had cause a rift between mentor and protégé. In which case, in the off-chance that Rodimus was willing to talk to him, perhaps Hook could mend that rift.

It made more sense the longer he thought about it: Kup's distance, Rodimus telling Ratchet about the rumors, and Hook being re-assigned. If Rodimus truly believed that his mentor was…doing what the rumors said, then Hook could easily see him violently rejecting the old Autobot. It was a little far-fetched, since Kup had been his mentor since well before the end of the war, but the rumors were kind of ugly. On the surface, they sounded like nothing but abuse, perversion, and even rape, if a mech read between the lines or listened to a colorfully embroidered version of the same basic tales being passed around. That would be enough to revolt any Autobot, even Kup's precious baby Prime.

It still didn't make total sense of Kup's words, but if Kup thought the rift permanent, the rejection could be the old Autobot trying to save face by preventing a scene. If _Hook_ went before Rodimus Prime, however - it would be awkward, but it might work. What could the Prime do, call the victim of the rumors a liar and stay angry at his teacher and friend? He had no reason to side with Hook over Kup.

He didn't even _like_ Hook. He hated the Constructicons. He really hated Hook, because Hook wasn't locked up in a box. Frag, at this point he probably wanted nothing more than to send the paroled surgeon off to prison as well for being the cause of all this trouble.

If - and it was a big 'if' - the Prime consented to speak with him, Hook was going to have to walk very, very carefully. The few times he'd been in the Prime's presence since the war criminal trials, Kup had been there running interference. The ex-Decepticon had just showed up, kept his mouth shut, and nodded at the appropriate times. He'd fumed, but he'd also done exactly as he'd been told because he knew how much Rodimus really didn't like him.

Right now, he'd welcome Kup's warning to, _"Shut your trap and let me do the talking, Decepticon."_

There was pressure building up around his spark. The ever-present terror gripped a little harder, and the quicksand trap of his gestaltlinks got a little softer. Hook's stride took on a firm purpose, and he walked faster. Right, mission acquired: speak with Rodimus Prime before things got out of hand again. Deny the rumors, get Kup back as his parole officer, and abjectly beg forgiveness for going over the stubborn old clank's head in doing so.

At this point anything was worth a try.


	9. Abusive paperwork

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warnings: all still apply**

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**Part Nine: "Being abused is hard work. The application process is endless!"**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

He shouldn't be here.

Everything in the room proclaimed itself Autobot. There were Autobots standing guard. The receptionist was an Autobot. There were Autobot crests built into the ceiling moulds. Someone had worked it into the floor, patterning the metal and glass waiting room's huge floor into a grandiose pattern of grey and silver-clear that culminated in an Autobot insignia inlaid near the double-doors at the end of the room. The chairs were relatively barren of Autobot vibes, but they seemed to have been designed to be uncomfortable, so maybe they were just passive-aggressive against everyone in general. The tables looked innocent until the reading material on them was examined.

Fortunately, Hook had brought his own. He'd been force-fed enough Autobot propaganda over the past three vorns, thank you very much. He'd rather read about the newest developments in nanotech for fuel injectors. That was at least peer-reviewed enough to pass as factual. It was interesting, too, and work-related reading, since Ratchet's condition for letting him off another work-shift was that he annotate the latest publication release from the galactic medical network.

"Might as well have you do something useful while you're sitting around waiting rooms," the Autobot medic had grumbled. "It's not like the rest of us will have time, since now we have to fill in for you."

Hook's hands had clenched, out of sight of the vidscreen's pick-up. Just as he'd feared: outside of his position in the medbay, his value dropped to nothing. He needed to keep his job, but in order to do that, he had to temporarily take himself off the scheduling roster. It was a catch-22. The longer this dragged on, the more complications popped up! "Sir, I need to speak with the Prime. If there is anything I can do while waiting for that to happen, I will of course work on it."

That had earned him a flatly puzzled look, as if he'd confused the CMO in some backward manner. "I'm not gonna ride your aft about applying for the schedule. That's - feh. It's your right. But why didn't you come to me, first? I'm your parole officer. I could have spoken to Rodimus through the system channels instead of making you fill out the applications and run through the bureaucracy."

That'd been an option? Kup had always gone straight to his precious Prime, but the Constructicon had thought that was because Kup was, well, Kup. He hadn't known that all parole officers could go that far up the chain!

It was actually reassuring, in a distant way. Hook had been captured, imprisoned, and released on parole, but he still had an odd sense of duty toward his fellow ex-Decepticons. He was one of the very few officers not in a spark-box. He'd never liked being responsible for subordinates prior to the end of the war, and he didn't like it now, but it was still vaguely nice to know that the Prime regarded the ex-'Cons as important enough to keep himself open to communication about them. Any problems among the parolees would be given a top priority that way.

Sometimes, Hook thought the Autobots were actually getting this _'reintegrate the Decepticons back into a peaceful Cybertron'_ thing right.

On the surface, the surgeon had hidden his surprise, however. "I appreciate the offer, but I did not wish to disrupt your schedule," he'd demurred, and the manners were so pounded in by now that he'd sounded naturally polite. "Waiting for my application to be processed does not bother me." Actually, it did, but he thought that he was already pushing his luck with his supervisor by requesting time off. Pressing the medic for further favors was going to land him in a mountain of debt. Owing favors was not an anxiety he needed added right now.

Ratchet had given him an odd look, but in the end he'd just transmitted the subscription data for the publications. Hook had downloaded them all onto a datapad, and he'd spent the last three joors combing through the articles as he was shuttled from one waiting room to another. It gave him something to do, in any case. Although he'd have to go back and take the worst of his scathing commentary out before forwarding these to the rest of the staff later. They might not appreciate his speculation on how some of the tests might have gone if applied to actual subjects or been done by real scientists.

It was quite annoying having to edit his true opinions on the occasionally _blatant_ oversights he was picking out. Did no one edit these publications anymore? Peer-review generally implied reviewing, yes? Maybe he should start focusing on advancing his professional career again in terms of applying as an anonymous peer. It would give him a decent outlet for his frustration with these publications, and might even give him a foot in the door for future cooperative ventures in research. As a co-author in theoretical and literature-related research, at least. Actual applied research would never be an option so long as he was in the parole system, and…unless he could convince Ratchet to sign off on it, his duty shifts would eliminate most of his time to use in other forms of research.

He shifted in the uncomfortable chair and puffed air out his vents, bitterly contemplating his status as a parolee again. Advancing his career was a worthless idea until he had some idea of if he'd ever get _out_ of the parole system. As a free Cybertronian, not as a prisoner, that was. Free mechs had careers. Parolees had community service.

He huffed again and went on to the next article.

Three joors of paperwork and waiting. It was torture meant to separate the weak-willed from the strong, he was sure. The application, he'd swear to Primus, had been the trickiest-worded form he'd ever had to fill out. Then it had to be printed out, in triplicate, on flimsies. Each of those flimsies had to be stamped by a different department office: the parole office (cue half a joor waiting in line and one call to his parole officer; Ratchet had, thankfully, taken care of all questions with a few curt words), his work division's department office (medical, of course; Ratchet had left word at the career office's front desk, and it'd been a quick in-and-out), and then his habitation sector's residential office (how, oh how, had he somehow missed the fact that his habitation block's supervisor was the mouthy red Minibot?!).

The stamped flimsies were then scanned into the system and processed, but in the meantime, they were copied in triplicate. Because the magic number in filework was evidently three. Maybe a Seeker got his wings every time the third copy was made, or something. In any case, the copies had to be delivered to each of the offices, apparently to insure that they had on hardcopy record that he had actually been the one making the application and this wasn't some demonic Decepticon plot in order to steal his I.D. or fool the offices.

So Hook had trotted around half the sector juggling nine flimsies, trying to keep them in order as he delivered them to the relevant offices, only to discover that Cliffjumper had left the sector for the course of his shift. The Constructicon had called the Prime's office six times trying to get ahold of the right person to tell him that, no, he didn't need to deliver the flimsies straight to his habitation supervisor's hand as long as the supervisor logged receipt in a timely manner. That meant he'd spent the last joor and a half sitting here in a lousy chair in an Autobot-saturated waiting room, pinging Cliffjumper reminders to check his message box every ten breems. Pestering the temperamental Minibot was a bad idea, but he'd already been in bureaucratic limbo for this long. Any longer, and the orn would turn over, and he'd have to fill out the application and _start over_ because the date on his original application wouldn't be correct anymore.

Hook's hands tightened around the datapad. The stylus he'd positioned against the vulnerable third knuckle of his right hand stabbed into a sensitive node cluster, and his head cleared. A little. The confusing swarm of emotions and thoughts he was - fairly sure? - certain weren't his own backed off slightly, letting him focus. For a while, anyway. The small pain-trick was working less successfully every time, and the mounting pressure around his spark made him want to get up and leave the building, just to prove he could. The walls weren't closing in around him.

He glanced up, pretending it was a casual look at the guards and not a wary check of the ceiling. Neither had gotten any closer. That didn't make his paranoia any better. Maybe he should ping a reminder at Cliffjumper again.

Wait, no. That would be a bad idea. Hook wasn't among the most socially adept, but even he knew that continual reminder-pings were as irritating as a nurse poking him repeatedly in the side during an operation. Considering how long the fragging Minibot had made him wait just to get the blasted flimsy stamped in the first place, he had no doubt that Cliffjumper was already pushing confirming receipt off until the last possible moment. Giving the mech a reaction to savor was exactly the wrong tact to take.

He looked toward the guards again, or rather, toward the door they guarded. During the joor and a half he'd waited in this room, he'd seen fifteen of the mechs waiting with him be called and go in. Another eighteen had been called to the receptionist's desk for a quiet conversation, and they'd all left afterward. The whole room flinched whenever the receptionist's arm moved to accept another call on his console. Applying for open slots in the Prime's schedule was like approaching the most important figure in a government system and asking for a word in private. Exactly like, in fact, because that's what the Prime was on Cybertron. The application process was grueling precisely because so many mechs wanted a shot at it.

Hook looked at his datapad and thought, yet again, that he shouldn't be here. He wasn't the type to take risks. He did his research, meticulously detailing every step of a plan until there was no risk he didn't have a percentage assigned to and a backup plan in place for. Scrapper had been the one to propose the initial plans, but Hook had been the one to -

No, but Scrapper was dead, now wasn't he? Hook had to make his own plans and take the chances he didn't have time to suss out.

His hand squeezed, shooting pain through his hand and only just managing to push back the haze of fear. Time. He didn't have it.

The receptionist answered a call, and the room flinched in unison. There were only twenty mechs left waiting, and less than a joor remaining in the Prime's open orn. It would be two orns until the next application date. Hook didn't have two orns.

"Application #462: Hook," the receptionist called, and a sigh of relief came from nineteen mechs.

The twentieth, of course, being Hook. His fuel pump stuttered in his chest, and for a terrifying moment, he could have shrieked in fear as the walls warped inward.

Logic shut off his visor, because emotionally, the surgeon was all over the place. In the darkness behind his offline optical sensors, his processors ruthlessly drew on sensor suites and factual information. The room was the same size it had been a klik ago. The walls were not moving. His spark was still inside his spark chamber. His spark chamber still nestled under his fuel pump. He could feel the rhythmic thump of that pump working, although it hitched nervously. The pump was in his body. His body was not a box.

Hook was here. He was not in a prison box. He was _here_.

It took less than 30 seconds to reconfirm what should have been obvious, and his visor lit red again. He pretended that time had been taken in shutting down the article annotation he'd been working on. Yes, he'd been very busy; look at Hook, the busy mech. He hadn't be paralyzed with sudden terror. Just busy.

Standing up required real effort, as did walking steadily back toward the reception desk. Appearances were everything. Weaknesses could be fatal among Decepticons, but Autobots preferred their backstabbing to be verbal.

"What? No, seriously? Kup's maybe, hmm, two-thirds his size. Mech, you gotta be rollin' my tires."

"Naw, naw, see, the old mech's his parole officer. I mean, he **was**, riiiiiiiight up until a few orns ago, you dig?"

"Wah-oooh. Ooo. Size doesn't matter, eh?"

"Aw, no, especially not with what I heard! See, **I** heard that Contrail heard that **Backstop** heard - "

The acoustics in this hall were lovely. Wonderful architecture, despite the overuse of Autobot insignias. The shape of the room lovingly conveyed every word said right to this desk here, where Hook came to a stop and tried very hard not to react to every horrifying word made into a yet more horrifying sentence strung into a completely devastating conversation. Oh, Primus, the gossip was getting worse. He couldn't take this. He couldn't.

His fuel pump had skipped straight from hiccups to hammering.

His fingers twitched, almost fumbling the application chit, but he managed to put it on the desk. "Application #462. I am Hook," he said, suitably formal, but he nearly didn't manage to keep his voice level when he got a sardonically arched optic ridge in return.

"I know," the Autobot receptionist drawled, and he withered inside. Everybody knew who he was.

"Is that physically possible?"

"You tell me, mech!"

As well as what Kup had done to him. It was, by the way, physically possible. Just rather painful, not that he'd tell anyone that under anything but torture.

"Your application's been rejected," the receptionist said sweetly after popping the chit into his console to scan for confirmation. "I am sorry, but the Prime just doesn't have time this orn to see you. If your issue is still outstanding in the next two orns, please re-register your application with the Office of the Prime at that time. Thank you for your understanding, and have a nice orn." The chit was handed back with a cheery smile.

He took it numbly and slid the chit's jack into a wrist port to access it. Why had he been rejected?

...Cliffjumper hadn't acknowledged receipt. The fragging _Minibot_ had _put it off_ despite Hook _pinging him_, and - what. _What._

"There's been an error," he gritted out, holding onto politeness with a death grip. The receptionist looked up, having gone back to work immediately after rejecting him. "I delivered the flimsy to my habitation block supervisor's inbox myself. Personally."

The Autobot accepted the chit back, smiling the perfect bureaucratic smile of someone who didn't give a credit one way or another. He checked the data and shook his head, taking the chit back out and sliding it over the desk again. "Your supervisor says he never received it." The handbook must have advised adding a dash of sympathy to the smile-mask at this point, because the Autobot's cheer dimmed a little. "I am sorry, but that's a matter to be directed to your supervisor, or perhaps your parole officer if you feel you cannot speak with him directly. Your application cannot be accepted without delivery confirmation, however, and it's no longer possible to file new applications today."

Cliffjumper hadn't just refused to acknowledge receipt. He'd claimed the flimsy had never _arrived_. That shuffled the blame neatly onto _Hook's_ shoulders, making it appear that _he'd_ been the one to frag up!

* * *

**Picture 12** _by Shibara _(on Ao3)

* * *

The Constructicon's visor flared an absolutely murderous crimson, deadly enough that the receptionist's smile faltered. The Autobot's hand moved just a little under the desk, and Hook reined in his temper by sheer force of will. He snatched the application chit up, and a whistling sound came from his fans as his vents switched to full-on, trying to dump the red-hot heat of pure fury. The chit threatened to crack in his grip, and his lips were a thin, strained line.

"Thank you," his voice could have been used to grate steel into scrap, "for your time." He turned his head and gave the two Autobot guards summoned by the receptionist's emergency button a curt nod. "An escort will not be necessary. I was just leaving."

They watched him go, optics cautious. As they should, because Hook was sure this wasn't the first time an ex-Decepticon had reacted violently in this room. Some Autobots probably didn't take well to this slag, either.

What he wanted most in the world, right this moment, was to hunt Cliffjumper down and make him _eat_ this fragging application chit. With a healthy seasoning of shredded Minibot tires on top.

Then he wanted to crawl to Kup's feet and have it be over with. All of it. Let this whole, terrible thing be something vomited out of a really bad defragment cycle.

Lacking the option of following through of either of those urges, Hook leaned against the hallway wall and folded his arms tight enough to make the metal of his arms squeal when he shifted. What had he been thinking, trying to give himself any form of dignity? He wasn't a free Cybertronian, he wasn't an Autobot - he wasn't even just an ex-'Con! He was Hook, and Hook didn't have the privilege of navigating a bureaucratic system like any other mech. That would grant him too much independence and the pretense of control.

He offlined his visor and accessed his internal commlink, and his pride gagged him when he swallowed it down. He needed to speak with Rodimus Prime, and he needed to do so now. This required extreme measures.

This was not going to be pleasant conversation to have, especially now. For one thing, he'd refused help once already, which made it twice as humiliating that he had to ask for it now. He would have to explain. Maybe not details, but enough to be convincing, and that made his claustrophobic spark feel even more trapped. He was going to go into debt, probably deeply, and owe major favors for decavorns.

For another thing, as if the timing weren't already enough to make him squirm just because this was getting down to the last breems of the day, it was now after duty-shift. Well after. For the Prime, this was the on-shift, but the government buildings ran on a two-shift work cycle. The medical buildings did not.

The other end of the connection buzzed. He waited. It buzzed again.

*"_What the ever-loving slag do you fragging **want**_?!"*

Hook winced, and his pride fled down his intakes to go hide somewhere in his tanks. Down by his knees approximately, or so it felt like. The Medbay had three work shifts. Anyone who worked in the Medbay recharged by their shift schedule, not by the Prime's work cycle. For Ratchet, this was the middle of his _recharge_ cycle. It didn't sound like he enjoyed being roused from it by his new parole duties.

This wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation at all.


	10. Bottoming from the bottom

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )  
**Warnings: all still apply**

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**Part Ten: "Going directly to the top still meant he'd be on the bottom."**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

If the next deca-vorn didn't somehow get easier, Hook was going to lodge a complaint against life. Why the frag didn't Vector Sigma have a Returns counter? This life sucked worse than a black hole; he wanted another one.

Dysfunctional didn't even begin to describe his relationships. His combiner team was either dead or trapped in bitty spark-boxes, but continued to inconvenience him than civil war had. His ex-parole officer was also his Master, but had apparently decided that he was no longer wanted. His current parole officer was his work supervisor but had just finished expressing in _glowingly_ radioactive terms just how much he hated both positions, and how much he wished Hook would stuff himself into a smelter.

It was funny, in a way. Hook had been the lead surgeon and one of the head medics of the entire Decepticon faction for the majority of the war. He'd heard a lot of cursing in his time, most of it directed at either Primus or himself, as Decepticon patients seemed to have been under the impression that profanity was a substitute for a malpractice case. Yet Ratchet had stripped paint peels off one side and mauled him raw all the way down the other, and the mech was a slagging _Autobot_.

The mech's vocalizer could set of a toxicology meter from halfway across the planet once he got going. It was like being violated obscenely with blunt objects in the form of words. If the ex-Decepticon hadn't been flinching at every other phrase and mumbling a litany of _'yes Sir, no Sir'_s in response to rather strident demands on his future behavior, he'd have taken notes. As it was, he'd been wincing with the sting too often to want to remember what he'd been told to do with a size 8 clamp and a fuel injector.

The act didn't seem physically possible, but to be honest, he didn't want to tempt fate by commenting on whether or not he could do that for fear that Ratchet would insist on demonstrating some of his more colorful instructions. It seemed wisest to mute himself and let the head medic get his ranting out. Ratchet really didn't like his recharge cycle interrupted. He liked even less when it was done by someone he didn't like, asking him to do something he'd offered to do earlier when he'd _been awake_. He was intent on taking his ire out that idiot. Said idiot had only slouched further against the hallway wall and endured.

Hook was going to be doing Ratchet's extra administrative duties for orns because of this. And socializing more with the medical staff. And volunteering in the laboratories to help with the excess work load. And setting up that tutorial for the new assembly rig he'd refused to write up before. And annotating every blasted article the galactic medical network ever published from now on. And getting his head out of his aft, although that was probably more of a metaphorical promise than an actual work assignment. He hoped, anyway.

After an extremely long tirade that'd made the surgeon regret everything and then some, Ratchet had finally hung up with a pissed-off huff, presumably to contact the Office of the Prime. So he'd been left here, leaning against the wall outside the waiting room, pretending to be annotating an article on his datapad as he waited. Passers-by in the hall stared curiously, but nobody spoke with him. He did his best to appear distracted by his work. Hook wasn't lingering about frantically hoping his grumpy parole officer could get him audience with the Prime, nope. He was desperately aware of how time was counting down on the last joor of the Prime's open orn, but he was just…standing here casually. Yep.

Did he still have a receipt for this life? He could return it, slightly used, and try another. Something simple and far away from responsibility, like a menial worker. Somewhere on the docks, because nobody had autonomy there. Just endless orders, a cube after work, some recharge, and repeat. Right now, that sounded like utter bliss to him.

The Constructicon stiffened, pushing away from the wall to stand upright as the door for the waiting room opened. The Autobot receptionist walked out, frowning as he looked the wrong way down the hall. "Hook?"

"Here."

The 'bot jumped, startled, and whipped around. "Oh! There you are. Ratchet said you'd be - " He stopped and smiled, that perfect bureaucratic smile to smooth over any awkwardness. "The Prime will see you now."

Hook was going to owe the head medic for the rest of eternity, it seemed. Favors forevermore. It'd be worth it, if this just worked. "Thank you," he said on automatic. Please let this work.

Every optic turned to him when he re-entered the room, but this time he didn't hear the whispers. His visor was locked on the double-doors at the end of the room, and his mind ran endless conversational models.

He had to keep it vague. The rumors _of abuse_ were untrue (because it wasn't abuse if he wanted it). He thought the change of parole officers had exacerbated the situation and worsened the rumors (he was going crazy because they were true; he needed Kup, by all that was holy, he needed Kup). He'd come to the Prime to ask where the rumors had started (plug the slagging hole) and ask for a return to status quo (Ratchet couldn't give him what he needed). That addressed the wild stories going around, hopefully redeemed Kup in the eyes of his protégé Prime, and put Hook back where he belonged: under the aged Autobot's control.

The scenarios turned over in his mind as the Autobot guards scanned him down to the framework. He almost didn't notice them locking his transformation and putting an inhibitor claw on his back. The sudden swamping weakness couldn't compete with the way Kup could bring him down to his knees. Getting upset over standard procedure for ex-'Cons was pointless. Reacting to the parolee requirements only made the Autobots suspicious, and that was the last thing he wanted right now. What was he going to do, anyway, attack the Prime? Hook wasn't good with people, but he wasn't _stupid_.

The doors opened, and the Constructicon hesitated on the threshold. Primus, he'd never missed Scrapper more in his life. He hadn't realized how many weak points he had until the team that'd be designed to cover or support them was taken away. But Scrapper and Bonecrusher were permanently gone, and the other three of his team were now nothing more than drains on his remaining strengths. All Hook wanted was Kup back, because he was nothing on his own.

He invented, firmly took a hold on his mask of dignity, and walked in.

Rodimus Prime sat ramrod straight in the chair behind his desk. Red hands were clasped before him, fingers laced, and the tension was visible, as though he was consciously gripping his hands together as hard as he could to keep from launching at Hook. It was a blatant reminder that the Constructicon wasn't wanted here. Well, that and the fact that there was no place to sit.

Usually, at least during the times Hook had been there with Kup previously, there were chairs in front of the desk. These had been removed, now very deliberately placed _behind_ Rodimus. In fact, even all the other furniture was shoved all the way back against the walls, making them too far away for polite conversation.

'_You are unwelcome here,_' the room said. _'Get out before I kill you with my bare hands_,' Rodimus' expression said.

Hook suppressed the urge to shift under the weight of both blatant messages. It didn't matter if he was unwanted, he had to do this. If he could just find the words. Which were stuck in his vocalizer, now that the time had come to say them. This was becoming tiresome.

Rodimus glowered silently, his mouth pressed into a flat, hard line, and just _stared_ back at Hook. He had no reason to make this any easier on the Constructicon, quite obviously.

Hook needed to talk. He needed to be persuasive. He had to fix this. He had to get Kup back as his parole officer, but where to start? _'Hi, can you put Kup back in charge of me because I need all those things rumored he does done to me, but don't court martial him because I…'_

Because… he _wanted_ it. _Needed_ it.

No. No, he couldn't possibly tell the truth of it. He was here to dispel the rumors, but Kup had told him he shouldn't even _think_ about lying to the Prime. The consequences of breaking that rule could be as terrible as the past two orns, if the old Autobot took advantage of this new neediness as punishment. Hook didn't even want to imagine it. His Mast - _Kup_ was already going to be furious that he'd gone over his head to the Prime directly. Compounding that anger was asking for worse.

Rodimus finally broke the silence. "Are you going to say something? Ever? Because if this meeting is so you can stand there glaring at me for the entire breem I've granted you, I'll throw your aft out. I have far better things to do." From his tone of voice, anything was more important than this.

The harsh tone combined with Hook's chilling nervousness to freeze his vocalizer for a few brief second further. At first, all he could manage was a thin, undignified squeak that he hoped to Primus below could not be heard from across the desk. It was degrading enough making that noise in front of Kup - to do so in front of the _Prime_ was humiliating on a level that did not even have a word to describe it yet. Primus, if the Prime _had_ hear it, and he told _Kup_ about it...

Hook did _not want to think about that right now_.

The Constructicon opened his mouth to speak and was horrified all over again when only a soft burst of static came out. He quickly covered it with a reset of his vocalizer - no nervousness here; just a little glitch - and tried again. "S-Sir," he started and swore internally for stuttering. Why was he constantly having trouble with that lately? He was going to put a bolt through his slagging vocalizer to keep it from vibrating. "I wished to speak with you regarding the change in my parole officer."

The Prime's expression went sardonic, and he leaned back to throw his hands in the air as if praising Primus that the mech had spoken. "No, really! I thought you wanted to talk about the weather."

Hook was a little taken aback by the sarcasm. He'd had no idea how much Kup had protected him from this mech's temper. Rodimus was young, but he'd thought the Matrix granted its bearer some maturity. Inborn Prime tendencies were a thing of fiction, apparently. "Specifically," he pressed on doggedly, deciding that he wasn't supposed to actually respond to the Autobot leader's words, "I wanted to speak with you about the rumors that have been raised. I was told they were the cause of this change, and I feel they need to be addressed."

That got a brief flash of something that wasn't irritation or amusement. For a moment, the brilliantly-painted mech sitting on the other side of the desk looked every bit his age. He looked like a young soldier pressed into a responsibility he wasn't ready for, but had to deal with anyway. The stark lines creasing the Prime's face stood out against the change of expression, making it even clearer, and Hook suddenly remembered what Kup had said.

If a parole officer was caught abusing his parolee, the rumors might embarrass the parolee, but they'd get the officer convicted. The officer in question had been this young leader's mentor for most of the war.

"Yeah. Those." Large arms lifted off the chair's armrests and came to lay on the desk as the Prime sat forward to fold his hands together again. The impetuous temper bled away into stark unease, and the ex-Decepticon could almost feel the way personal prejudice and official duty fought inside the younger mech. "I had hoped..." The lines deepened. Optimus' battlemask had covered whatever expressiveness the previous Prime's face might have had, but Rodimus led in peace. The Matrix had reformatted its current bearer's face to convey emotion so clearly it was almost painful. Rodimus Prime was _torn_ right now. "Has Ratchet spoken with you, yet?"

Ratchet had spoken to him, at length and with much profanity. Hook didn't think that's what the Prime was referring to. "I wasn't aware he was supposed to," he said, neutral to cover just how confused he was. He only had a breem, however; there was no time to puzzle over what had Rodimus in a twist. "He informed me that he had first heard the rumors from you. I thought it best to go to the source..?"

He'd hoped that'd be enough to hint he wanted to know where the atrocious tales were leaking from, but that just seemed to conflict the Autobot more. The Prime's voice lowered to a mutter, "Fraggit, I - damn you anyway, Kup. Fucking hell."

Even at a low volume, the Earth obscenities made Hook's visor widen slightly. He hadn't heard those terms in vorns, and the context made it even more surprising. This was coming from Kup's precious protégé? What? Surely - well, he'd suspected, given how Kup had outright refused to speak for him, but the idea of an Autobot siding with an ex-Decepticon war criminal against a universally-loved living legend was absurd. He hadn't thought the baby Prime would actually believe what was being said!

...of course, that'd been before the victim of the rumors turned up, desperately using official channels and even resorting to Ratchet in order to have an evidently urgent meeting with him. That did kind of make things look even worse than they sounded.

"Look," Rodimus said, lifting his hands to wipe them down his face, "I'm sure you know who Rung is? I - maybe you think it's not necessary, but he's already contacted me about this, and he believes it's important that you start attending therapy with him right away. This isn't - frag, I can't even tell you how scrapped this whole thing is. I don't want me to make it worse." He laid his hands flat on the desk and stared at them, hard. His face had finally settled, implacable and hurt in the worst way a young mech could be. "I know you know I don't like you, but nobody deserves - " His head shook, banishing his own thoughts. "If this becomes official, the 'Cons," Hook twitched, and the Prime caught himself, "the ex-Decepticons are going to be up in arms. Things are already heating up toward that anyway, and it's just been gossip so far."

He looked up at Hook, and he seemed to draw in on himself at the Constructicon's stricken expression. "I'm not gonna deny you've got a right to bring this to the courts. I'd have...**preferred** to handle this quietly to, uh," he gestured, a flailing hand-wave of embarrassment by proxy, "avoid exposing, um, everything. But it's up to you."

"I..." Hook paused, processors spinning. He could tell all _right now_. He could pay his ex-parole officer back for every pain, every humiliation, every belittling word ever spoken to him. He could have his revenge. He could _ruin_ Kup as thoroughly as Hook himself had been ruined at the end of the war.

As fast as the thought came, it fled. Who in Primus' name would ever believe _him_ over _Kup_? Kup the war hero. Kup the sergeant that'd trained half the slagging Autobot army. Kup who was the mentor of the very Prime trying to give this all a fair audio, but didn't _want_ to believe any of it.

Sure, at the moment Rodimus was trying to be sympathetic. That wouldn't last long. Call Hook a cynic, but he couldn't imagine the Autobots believing the tales once the shock value wore off. Once it became clear what chaos this was going to cause, they'd start blaming him for being the source. For blowing it out of proportion or maybe they'd just outright accuse him of lying. It wasn't as though he had proof. It was his word against Kup's.

And what if Hook did tell it all? He let that scenario play out in his mind, trying to picture how it would go. Okay, so he confessed the whole sordid story to the Prime. What next? If Rodimus' reluctant word was to be believed, it'd be passed up to the courts. The Autobot Council was what the Cybertronian Senate had been, once upon a time, only on a smaller and presumably less corrupt scale. It would duly appoint a judge and draw a jury. Since Hook was still technically a prisoner of war so long as he remained in the parole system, it'd be a military court.

Kup would go before a court of his peers - and Hook would have to testify. Given the nature of who was on trial and how unbelievable the tale was, he'd have to testify in depth. A humiliating account of his slow, three-vorn long descent into servitude: the cycles of physical violence, the nonstop verbal abuse, the threats and punishment and, worse, the rewards. He'd have to go into awful detail about every shameful, squirming moment groveling under Kup's tires.

Being who and what he was, all of Cybertron would be interested. The Autobots would pity and revile him, even if they believed him. The ex-Decepticons would use the case to justify what might turn into a rebellion, and wouldn't _that_ be a miserable failure? There weren't enough officers left out of spark-boxes to do anything with the rank and file who'd stayed out on parole. Hook himself couldn't lead a parade in his condition right now.

Oh, and great. Just great. About _that_. Counseling? What the frag was counseling going to accomplish? On the short term, absolutely nothing. He was going to get sucked down into the consuming terror of his gestaltmates before any long-term progress could possibly be made. Optimistically, what would the long-term progress really entail? It'd be one more humiliating obligation heaped on top of the pile, and it'd be mandatory, in all likelihood. As much as Hook grudgingly respected Rung's theoretical and applied treatment work, the mech was a soft-sparked Autobot who believed that psychological problems were more relevant to an injured mech than actual wounds. Hook didn't need _therapy_. He needed -

The Constructicon yanked his own thoughts up short before they could circle right back to their endless panicking loop. Primus help him, maybe therapy wasn't such a lousy idea after all. If his crippling dependency issues weren't based on his gestaltlinked spark, then they might be the result of Kup intentionally molding him into this mockery of a mech. In which case, trying to get the old Autobot back as his parole officer was the worst idea possible.

But a mental dependency didn't explain the physical pressure building around his spark, or the near-catatonia he felt himself slip toward the moment he stopped moving. It didn't explain the way he kept losing his sense of self in the claustrophobic terror of the gestalt. It didn't explain how those symptoms had been so perfectly countered by Kup's mindfragging that Hook hadn't realized the extent of the problem until the game stopped.

He could get his revenge on the old rustbucket, but that wouldn't help him in the slightest if the sadistic clank's inherent viciousness toward him had only been helping him all along. How much had been for Kup's entertainment, and how much for Hook's sanity?

And there was still yet one more thing that didn't quite add up. Hook knew they had been careful. Their...actions (he would _not_ call it a 'relationship,' and it wasn't even remotely a 'tryst') had always happened behind closed doors. The game usually started and ended behind _Kup__'s_ closed door, specifically. Most of the damage the Constructicon had carried away from those sessions had been fairly easily explained outside those doors; nobody had cared to look closely, and the abuse had started small. Hook's reputation as a klutz outside the medbay had built over the course of three vorns, not overnight. It'd started with scuff marks from the occasional backhanded blow, and now there wasn't much the surgeon couldn't conceal or explain away. He had a whole line-up of creative stories about how he'd accidentally hurt himself ready to tell depending on the injury.

It hadn't normally required much talking, really. Burns from Kup's cy-gar were rarely visible, usually under Hook's plating or even in his mouth. Dents and scrapes were easily explained away by a moment of clumsiness or cranky fellow ex-Decepticons. While fighting was punished severely, it was not unheard of for the ex-Decepticons to roughly bump or shove one another, especially in common areas like the wash racks. Slag, Hook had been tripped up more often by that fragging red Autobot Minibot in the common room while getting his ration!

So the point remained: how had the rumors started in the first place when they - okay, Kup - had been so careful not to be caught?

"Prime, sir," the Constructicon started, still nervous but now curious on top of it, "if I may ask...how did _you_ hear of this?"

The question got him narrow blue optics, as if the Prime were trying to see his angle. He could sort of understand the suspicion. If this were a straightforward case of an officer abusing a subordinate, especially a subordinate known for his sharp vocalizer and pitiless bluntness, dancing around the issue made things strange. On the surface, at least, Hook didn't seem the type for discretion.

"I doubt it will help anything at this point," the younger mech said heavily, "but Kup was the one who alerted me to the rumors being spread. I guess he thought it'd look worse if he didn't say anything." That got another gesture, still helpless and embarrassed, but also hurt and angry. The Matrix had chosen a particularly expressive Prime. "Not that it matters. It doesn't count for much when a mech turns himself this late in the - three vorns, Hook? Three?" This time the anger leaked over onto the ex-Decepticon; displaced anger but still enough to singe the Constructicon's plating when Rodimus glared at him. "You couldn't have fragging well **said** something to someone before this?"

"To whom?" popped out before Hook could think, but it was an honest question. Who would he have spoken to? Who wouldn't have heard him out, taken a look between Hook, war criminal and Kup, Autobot war hero, and wondered what kind of bridge he was trying to sell?

The Prime glared a moment longer, then deflated all at once. "Primus. This is going to be a nightmare." The strained blue optics dropped to stare at the desktop, but it was obvious they weren't seeing it. They were looking into a future of ex-'Cons revolting against the system, Autobots taking sides as the trial drew out in messy political style, post-war Cybertron in upset, and galactic opinion on the newly-peaceful planet taking a steep dive. Not to mention the fact that his mentor, his friend, was the bad guy. A hidden one, which made the betrayal even worse, because that meant everything had been a lie. Nothing had been real about Kup, if the gossip were true.

The mech's face read like an open book. He was definitely not a Prime meant to lead in war.

Hook read the future off that young face and didn't like what he saw. Not that he'd liked any of it, but this just kept getting worse and worse. He'd come in here to squelch the source of the rumors and ask the Prime to reinstate Kup, only to find that _Kup_ was the source of the rumors. Or at least the official channel for how they'd come to the Prime's audios.

It didn't make any sense. It didn't. The confused Constructicon had the terrible feeling he was missing something right in front of his face, but he didn't know _what_.

"What did." He had to pause and reset his vocalizer as static crept in around the edges of his voice. The panic was burrowing into his mind, trying to pull him apart at the seams. "What did Kup say when he brought…this to your attention?" He was grasping after the thinnest strand of a clue, but he didn't know what else to say.

The idea of revenge clashed directly up against the revelations of the past two orns of trying to keep himself sane. But his stubborn self-importance demanded his seize that flimsy, false sense of power. Realizing what Kup had done for him didn't negate the humiliation and pain of the Autobot's chosen techniques. Kup's abuse wasn't excusable.

Mostly because, and the thought burst through vorns of self-denial and pride frayed by two orns of self-reflection, he didn't need to be excused. Except that would mean -

Hook couldn't want it, he couldn't -

How could he possibly even think that -

He didn't _want_ -

"He said to ask you," Rodimus Prime said, inadvertently interrupting Hook's whirling thoughts.

The Constructicon met the Prime's wary, expectant look, and an epiphany hit him in the back of the head so hard Devastator would have been knocked off his feet.

It was his choice.

All of it. All of..._this_.

Kup had set him up. He'd set everything up, from that first klik he'd come into Hook's prison cell and seen a broken gestalt mech starting a downward spiral. He'd taken the Constructicon in hand, slowly guiding him through the aftermath of war and the beginning of peace and every fragged-up terrible thing that'd warped a member of a shattered combiner team into one lone mech paroled out on his own.

Hook was a Constructicon. He was an arrogant aft, but competent in his field. Outside of that specialty, however, he faltered. Every combiner team functioned in a similar way. Together they stood; divided, they fell.

He wasn't supposed to be alone.

Kup had set him up.

Hook stared across the desk, visor wide and mind reeling, and couldn't decide if he hated Autobots or adored them. Them and their slagged-up system of morals. They insisted on giving every mech free will and holding onto a stupid belief that consent was a right, yet would saving someone despite himself. No matter what it cost themselves.

Because the blasted old Autobot had been manipulating him for vorns, but all the manipulations were leading up to giving him this one Pit-fragged, smelted, scrap-waste choice: confirm the rumors...or deny them. And there was really only one way to do that.

Hook cycled his vents, looked Rodimus right in the optics, and said, "Sir, there was no abuse. I have no charges to press against Kup."

It was the truth, even if it wasn't all of it. Kup had practically ordered him not to lie to the Prime, so Hook wouldn't, but if he could spare them both the embarrassment of hashing out details, then he sure as slag would.

Rodimus eyed the Constructicon for a moment longer before slouching. Relief sheeted off his shoulders, the age-lines leaving that too-expressive face. He just looked weary and exhausted now. He wouldn't have lasted half a klik in the Decepticons being that transparent. They'd have torn him apart before he even realized how vulnerable displaying his emotions made him.

He regained his composure after a moment, and straightened, looked back up at Hook, trying to reach for the casual flippancy he'd probably had as Hot Rod. "Thank you for that, I suppose." The flippancy darkened to an oddly wary curiosity. "But…I have to wonder, then. Why did Kup come to me if it was never anything but gossip-mongering?" Trust betrayed didn't knit back together immediately. The rumors had been too painful for that.

Having made the choice, Hook immediately wished he'd chosen differently. His intakes had seized up while the Autobot leader was having his moment of relief, and his pride howled protests. He had to offline his vocalizer to keep them from coming out in a snarl of loathing at the baby Prime, but his visor glittered crimson with contained emotion.

Rodimus' question punctured his temper like a pin set to a balloon. Of course it couldn't be easy. None of the underlying problems had been solved; just the big, obvious one he was willing to talk about in public. For some bizarre reason, he'd had a surge of conviction that he'd chosen the easy way out, like the only reason he'd denied the rumors was because then he could turn and walk from this fragging office and be done with it.

Except that denying the rumors hadn't _solved_ anything. It'd just been a choice. _His_ choice, wretchedly difficult to decide, but the better choice in the end. His pride clawed the inside of his helm because it was true. He hated it, and it was so true it hurt.

He couldn't lie to the Prime. Not now, of all times, because Hook's short-term plans had abruptly rearranged, and being able to say he hadn't lied was going to become very important real soon. All of which meant that he had to tell the truth. It was just that the truth was rather...incriminating. Mortifying enough to make Hook's cables knot, but also difficult to explain in any way that didn't confirm the rumors he'd just denied. Factually speaking, it looks bad on the face of things. Did Kup hit him and yell at him and make him crawl? Yes.

But.

Frag his life. He could barely managed to admit to _himself_ what Kup did to him. Explaining it to anyone else was asking for it to be misunderstood!

"There is," Hook picked his words carefully, oh-so carefully, and forced them thickly past something heavy sitting atop his vocalizer, "some truth mixed in among the tales being told." That was a fabulous wall behind Rodimus Prime. Why didn't he examine it down to the last micron? As long as it didn't involve looking at the brightly colored mech now staring at him with dropped jaw and rounded optics, the Constructicon could look at that wall for ages. "Kup has not...taken advantage of me. In. Any way." The truth collapsed his throat linkages on the way out, emptying him out as it came out in a long-denied confession. "I have...asked." When had his vents closed? He had to stop and inhale deeply, restarting his ventilation cycle. "Needed. More of him than his duties have required him to...give. I. He."

His words stumbled to a stop, and he clamped his mouth shut. This was ridiculous. He found the words, queued them up, and cycled through a full vent. The wall continued to require his full attention, because like the Pit could he bear to look at the Prime right now. His hands were shaking, as was his spark. Part of it was terror. Some of it was humiliation. The rest of it was the unmitigated rush of changing something momentous that couldn't be undone afterward. Life didn't come with an _Undo_ key.

"Kup came to you," Hook said mechanically, gaze fixed above the Prime's head, "because my...needs compromised the professional relationship between us, and the rumors exposed that ethical dilemma. His removal was the only viable solution in order to demonstrate that my involvement was - is - voluntary."

There. It was said. It was a confession that could still get both he and Kup reprimanded, an official citation slapped on their files, but not like - not at nearly the severe level confirming the far-worse rumors would have earned. He focused on cycling his vents evenly. In, out, in, out, don't look at Rodimus in the optic because he did _not_ want to see the look on his face and know exactly what he was thinking.

The silence stretched around them, and Hook knew they were quickly coming up on the end of his scheduled breem, though he didn't dare check his chronometer. He idly, foolishly hoped there was a timer somewhere that was set to ding any second, and then the guards would open the doors to escort him out, and that would be that. No more dealing with wibbling young Autobot leaders who didn't have the slightest clue what the Constructicon had gone through in the past three vorns. He could just leave, it'd be over, and he could go tell Kup.

Oh. He'd go...tell Kup - uh. What, exactly?

"I... see," Rodimus said at length, breaking into the surgeon's suddenly apprehensive thoughts. He sounded like he wished as much as Hook did that he didn't understand what Hook had implied.

It was a mistake to look down, but also an involuntary action. When the mech he was talking to spoke, Hook tended to look at them. And then...yeah. He couldn't unsee that look on the Prime's face. Nice to know that he wasn't the only one discomfited by spilling private affairs into the open like this.

They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity to Hook. An eternity a thousand times over before the Prime finally shook his head.

"I..." The brightly-colored Autobot leader opened his mouth and then shut it again. "I see," he finally repeated, his face trapped somewhere between disgust and bewilderment. The Constructicon standing in front of his desk shifted, a subtle movement that was as obvious as an embarrassed squirm. "And this is, uh, why you needed to speak with me?" Rodimus sounded like trying to stay professional at this moment was as difficult as wrestling Sharkicons.

To be fair, it wasn't every orn a mech's mentor was nearly brought up on charges of misconduct and abuse of a parolee, then simultaneously cleared of charges while being revealed to be kind of, sort of doing what he'd been accused of. The conflicting emotions rollicking across that too-expressive face would have been hilarious if they hadn't involved Hook in any way.

Why had he come to the Prime? Not for the reason he'd thought he had. He'd come here to solve a problem that was only in his head, as Kup had already pointed out, only to find himself making a decision his subconscious had made long ago. This had been the longest, most confusing but life-changing breem he'd ever blundered through.

So was this why he'd needed to speak with Rodimus? "Yes," Hook agreed slowly. No. Maybe. He didn't really know anymore. "The rumors were getting out of hand."

That got a shell-shocked laugh and an incredulous reset of the Prime's optics. "Out of - **yes**, I would **say** so!" The young leader sat back, almost violently throwing himself away from the desk to slap his hands down on the armrests and shake his head. "Primus! What the frag were you two thinking, to - y'know what, nevermind. I can't even deal with this slag right now. I'll just ask...someone about it." A frustrated handwave indicated that someone could be Kup, the wall, or maybe whoever walked in the door next. Frankly, Hook didn't care so long as it wasn't him. "Later. It'll all get dealt with later, because I'm done with this. Over it. Finished." Rodimus sagged forward, energy spent and suddenly looking weirdly haggard. "Get out."

The surgeon had never been so happy to be dismissed like a flunky in his _life_. "Yes, Prime." He braced to attention, half-bowed, and turned on a heel to do the most dignified version of fleeing from the room he was capable of.

* * *

**Picture 13 **_by Shibara _(on Ao3)


	11. No one could want this But

**Authors:** (by words contributed)  
_Bibliotecaria_D_  
_NK_ ( archiveofourown users / NKfloofiepoof )  
_Lady Aquill_ ( lady-aquill . livejournal . com )  
_Camfield_ ( archiveofourown users / Camfield )  
_LadyDragon76_ ( archiveofourown users / ladydragon76 )  
_Dellessa_ ( archiveofourown users / Dellessa )  
_Jarakrisafis_ ( archiveofourown users / Jarakrisafis )  
_Sakiku_ ( www . fanfiction u / 343547 / Sakiku )

**Artist: **_Shibara_ ( shibara-ffnet . livejournal . com )  
**Warnings: all still apply**

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**[* * * * *]**

**Part Eleven: "No one could want this but the one who shouldn't."**

**[* * * * *]**

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Hook's mind was awhirl with entirely too many conflicting and confusing thoughts as he numbly exited the Office of the Prime. The guards had clinically restored his transformation and taken off the inhibitor, and he'd barely noticed through the swarm of new thought. New thoughts about old knowledge, really, which made the thoughts stunning in their _Duh!_ quotient. It was difficult to feel like a total idiot for not seeing the obvious for so long when the obvious was the inverse of everything he was.

Or at least the inverse of what he'd thought he was. There was a gap in thought involved in changing how he saw himself. On the one hand, he was an ex-Decepticon parolee who let a sadistic Autobot mindfrag him in order to stay sane. On the other, he was a willing pet who didn't care that this had nothing to do with factions, the end of the war, or even his confined gestalt. It was difficult to even think that to himself. His mind cringed trying wrap around the concept.

He made the trek from the Prime's office to the street outside in a haze of conflicting thought. He could have transformed and driven back to his habitation block, but walking seemed like the wiser option considering how his processors seemed to be lagging. He could hardly believe what had happened - yet, at the same time, it made so much _sense_ that there was no way he _couldn't_ believe it.

Frag Kup. Frag the old relic in the audio receptor with rusted rebar! Getting caught in another Decepticon's schemes had always been a blow to Hook's pride; being so expertly manipulated for _so blasted long_ had him reeling. It wasn't just a blow. It was a mockery of his intelligence!

He had a mind to let the rust-covered slagheap twist for a few orns. Hook had saved Kup's career from a court martial or worse, and the rumors would start dying down soon once the Prime did…whatever it was that he'd do. Either the old Autobot would end up with a reprimand, or the whole deal would just go away in a few orns. There was no reason to immediately return to the way things were now that Hook knew and understood the truth. Now that he knew what Kup had done to and _for_ him. Not right away, anyway. After all, the ancient crank had made this whole mess _his_ choice. That was unavoidably clear now.

What would Kup do to him if he _chose_ to brush him off now? Not revenge, but a little payback for the panic and shame of the last two orns. A bit of a dig to let the old sergeant know that Hook knew what he'd done and didn't appreciate being danced around like a puppet in front of the Prime. Let the drone-fragging clank tighten his own screws or scrub his own joints or dust his own furniture for a few orns. There was nothing he _could_ do to drag Hook back sooner; not legally, not anymore. So -

A sharp blade of unchecked emotion stabbed into the Constructicon's spark, and he jerked to a stop as if he had walked straight into a wall. What was he _thinking_? He was riding the relief-high from escaping the Prime's office with his dignity intact enough to allow a civilized mask to show the rest of Cybertron. Soon enough, however, that would crash, and he'd be right back to the desperation and terror that'd been drowning him only a few breems earlier. The longer he put off reporting to Kup, the angrier the old Autobot would be for his dalliance, and the worse Hook's punishment would be as a result.

Emotion squeezed his spark once more, pure and unchecked. The tall ex-Decepticon stood still in the middle of the raised walkway between buildings and stared down at the street below as he tried to regain some composure. He heard the whispers of mechs around him, felt optics of varying colors - mostly blue - staring at him, some more blatantly than others. His vents felt clogged, and he urgently willed himself to breathe as an overheat warning flashed at the corner of his vision. His fans kicked on, but the stifling sensation only grew more oppressive.

It took him a klik to realize the creeping fear threatening to choke him was not entirely his own. His confusion and nervousness had only exacerbated the constant influx of terror from his imprisoned teammates, and the gaping maw of nothingness where his deceased teammates used to be threatened to swallow him whole. Hook's vision blurred at the edges, and all he could do was stare at the ground. The open air was closing in around him like the walls of a box, a box around his spark, and he was lost in a combination of horrifying sensations that never relented, never stopped -

A gentle touch on his arm brought Hook lurching back to awareness. He jerked away, visor flaring bright crimson in alarm as he whipped around.

The Autobot who had touched him hopped back as well, arms immediately coming up in a defensive posture as he babbled nervously, "S-Sorry! You were just...you were standing there all zoned out for a long time, and I just wanted to make sure you didn't need a medic or something!"

_'Standing there all zoned out…'_

The worried statement echoed in his audios like a pronouncement of doom. The surgeon's fuel tank churned with dread and horror when he checked the time. Had he really been standing there staring at the ground for _three breems_? Primus, if this stranger hadn't snapped him out of it, there was no telling how long he would have been there. The mere _thought_ of standing out in the open staring into space like a glitched maintenance drone nearly made him want to purge his tanks.

"I'm - I'm fine." he insisted, his voice strained. "Thank you for your concern." Here but for the kindness of a random Autobot was he still conscious. What a horrifying thought. He willed his feet to move, and they finally did after a few attempts, one foot dragging before he managed to remember how to properly walk. His processors had skipped straight from lagging to beginning to spit scrambled code. He was one step from malfunctioning, and it scared him right down to the core. "I'm fine," he repeated more firmly and continued on his way, leaving the bewildered and somewhat disturbed Autobot behind.

Hook was only half aware that he had changed directions, no longer walking toward his own building. He needed - well, he knew what he needed. He'd admitted what he needed. He had to fix this. Even though the idea was humiliating, perhaps Rodimus' suggestion of seeing Rung was not such a terrible idea. But...therapy took time, and time was one thing the ex-'Con was well aware he did not have.

The walkway blurred, running into a smear of colors and lights as he concentrated on putting his feet in front of each other. He hoped he look passingly normal; he didn't want to fend off anymore well-meaning strangers if his body language betrayed how badly his CPU was beginning to fritz.

The next thing he knew, Hook was staring at a familiar door once more. Nervousness clutched his spark again, and he nearly turned to leave. He needed more time to plan how he wanted to approach Kup. He wanted to delay this until he'd more time to think this through, but then he realized he...did not remember the rest of the walk here. There'd been the walkway, and the blur of the passage through the building it'd led to. After his previous lapse, however, there was just the flickers of colors registered by his optical sensors without actually being seen, and the empty system logs from his body. All the lights had been on, but he hadn't been home.

His tank churned again. No, he couldn't keep putting this off. No matter what his pride screamed at him about trying to make a point, he needed this. At least for a while. He could…think of longer term solutions later.

The thought weakly nagged at the corner of his mind that three vorns was a rather long-term solution, and it seemed to be extending longer. And a large portion of him, the part out of denial, was content with that.

Hook pulled a deep ventilation in a vain attempt to clear his head. Right. This was not the time to be get distracted. He turned back to the door and reached toward the access panel to hit the door chime. It pinged, and his fuel pump double-timed when no one answered. He pressed the access pad again, and it pinged again. No answer. His engine started to whine, picking up speed but going nowhere. He waited a klik, but all that got him was a group of Autobots staring at him as they passed him in the hall. He tried to look bored and put-upon.

He mashed the pad as soon as they turned a corner. The repeated pings were an annoyance, but he couldn't help himself. Panic swelled. It overflowed his tanks to pool inside him and slowly fill him up, pushing his internal parts out of the way.

"Kup." He knocked, but it was as quiet as his voice. He really didn't want to give the old Autobot the impression he was trying to break down the door. Physically pounding on a door was barbaric. Unless the door chime was broken, but the chances of that happening between the last time he was here and now were fairly low.

If he weren't so cable-thrumming tense at the moment, he'd have rested his forehelm against the door. The ever-important need to keep up appearances was almost trumped at that moment by the rippling tide of rising fear spilling over his engine to gurgle terror in his chest. Pride and future therapy be fragged - right now he needed _Kup_.

"Please..."

An incoming message dropped into his internal comm. system queue. He almost didn't open it, too busy scraping up the courage to bang harder on the door. Polite social practices versus desperation; the story of his life behind closed doors.

Habit made him check the message anyway. Working in the medical field did that to a mech, because emergencies waited for no one. This wasn't an emergency surgery notice, however; it was just a reminder from Ratchet that he'd been rescheduled for the mid-shift this orn. There was also a note that he'd better be prepared for off-duty assignments, because Ratchet was going to put him to work afterward. Hook owed his parole officer, and the head medic had every intention of collecting and collecting on that debt.

The Constructicon bitterly sent back an acknowledgement, knowing he didn't have much choice in the matter. The mech _had_ helped him. The off-duty duties just meant that his shifts had extended. Fine. As far as repaying Ratchet went, extra-long shifts were probably getting off easy.

He reset his visor. Then he linked into the door access pad and made a standard query. He hadn't even thought to check. He'd been so focused on how his life revolved around Kup that it just hadn't occurred to him the opposite didn't apply.

Kup was _on duty._ The rusted frag-rag wasn't even in.

That…put a crimp on things, yes.

Hook wandered for a short while, managing to keep moving, but only because he had something to focus on. He watched his chronometer tick, paranoid that he'd blank out again. The weight of fear from his gestaltlinks pressed in against him and it was getting more difficult to ignore, but he had to figure this out. He still had less than half a joor before the old Autobot was off duty when he found himself back in front of his door, no closer to an answer and steadily getting hazier, missing kliks at a time.

He _did_ have an access code, but would it still work? What did it mean if it did? Worse, what did it mean if it didn't? Then again, why should it? Kup wasn't his parole officer anymore, it would only have been prudent to change a code to keep out someone that no longer had a reason to be in his quarters.

Except that Kup had set him up. Kup had _wanted_ this to happen this way. Hadn't he? Or had Hook been entirely wrong about everything?

His hand hovered over the controls, twitching as he debated back and forth in his mind.

There was, of course, the need to consider what Kup would do if the code did work and he returned to find Hook in his quarters. Would he be angry for Hook assuming he was welcome? Would it be one of those very rare instances that he was pleased?

Hook found his fingers resting on the keys, but he wasn't at all sure what reaction he preferred.

What options did he have left to consider? He could go to the medbay, he supposed. At least if he froze up there, somebody would do something. He doubted it would solve the problem, but -

Truth be told, he was delaying the inevitable. Again. Kup had set him up, but Hook had missed so many of the obvious signs along the way that there was no way that the old Autobot wasn't angry with him by now. It was part of the continual mindfrag to give him no graceful way out. Kup had the ability to hone his pet's anxiety razor-sharp, and he seemed to take great pleasure in doing so.

Hook inputted the slagging code.

The door slid open.

It was the biggest climatic fail ever. If this were one of those horrid drama shows the nurses liked, Kup would have been on the other side waiting. Cue confrontation, right?

Instead, there was the same room there always was, as empty as one might expect considering that its occupant was currently working. Hook cycled his vents and stepped slowly inside, and there was no ominous feeling of invasion or hostility. It was just a room. A familiar room, and if there was anything in the air to hit the Constructicon's plating, it was a faint bit of dust. That was hardly a difficult barrier to overcome. There was no challenge upon entering or an epic endgame guardian fight. He stepped inside, and the door closed behind him.

Oh. Well, now what?

He was just as worked up as he'd been outside the door, except now there was the relief of knowing he wasn't about to lock up in front of spectators. That was replaced the worry of locking up here, away from help. Kup might return from his shift to find Hook standing blankly in his room, unresponsive from internal terror. Which would, the surgeon had to admit, neatly sidestep a confrontation of any kind.

He looked around, hands flexing helplessly at his sides, and wished the room looked somehow different than normal. As it was, it just looked a little dusty. His fingers twitched again, the palms itching to wipe away the grime. Filth wasn't something he could tolerate. It _bothered_ him.

There were long-standing orders in place for him about Kup's quarters, however. Hook had the code to get into this room because the old Autobot hadn't always been present to supervise his Constructicon toy. The sergeant had laid down rules and assigned numerous tasks in the past for those times. Belongings were off-limits, not that the ex-'Con had ever been much tempted to handle any of Kup's personal effects. That wasn't something he spent more than a passing thought on. Just - no. Kup's things weren't his to touch without specific permission. The Autobot could put a cube of energon in front of him, and even if he were starving, Hook wouldn't so much as consider taking it because it was _Kup's_.

Did that apply to wiping down the floor and furniture? The Constructicon's visor squinted as he turned that thought over. He looked around the room again, wondering how far he could push the rule. There was a datapad lying out on the table, but he was a surgeon. Cleaning around it delicately enough not to brush it with a finger wouldn't be any harder than replacing stripped screws on a fuel pump while it functioned. He could easily get around the chair legs without moving it, too. Resisting the urge to straighten everything would be more difficult, in fact, but imagining Kup's wrath if the Autobot took offense at him handling his possessions would keep that under control.

His shoulders eased down slightly as his plan gelled together. Half a joor was far less intimidating a prospect when there was a definite activity to fill the time. And assigning himself janitorial duties filled him with opposing feelings of shame and relief that seemed to clear some space in his head. Neither emotion was exactly _pleasant_ to feel, but at least they were _his_ emotions. Voluntarily reducing himself to the level of a menial worker was degrading, but it was better than standing frozen in terror until his gestaltmates sucked away his mind through his shivering spark.

Scrubbing the floor was the better option.

After cleaning, he could use the attached washrack. It was presumptuous to assume any of Kup's orders still applied to him, but the old clank was pretty insistent on Hook always being spotless around him. Of everything the Constructicon wasn't allowed to touch in his quarters, Kup had given him free access to the washrack. Polishing himself up would take up more time, distract him, and - hopefully - please the cranky relic.

Plan in place, Hook dug a maintenance kit from out from a compartment under his armor. He couldn't risk getting a vac-rag or cleansing cloth from one of the cabinets; anything in them was Kup's property, off-limits to him. That left whatever he had left in the small kit he carried, which...wasn't much. He held up the small mesh square and sighed hot air out. Better than nothing, he supposed. Between this and the polishing cloth, he should be able to manage.

The table was as good a spot to start as any. It'd bothered him before and never quite left his thoughts afterward. Perfectionist compulsions were a benefit in the surgery theatre, but such a glitch outside it. Right now, however, the surge of obsession as he eyed the dust was wholly welcome. Anything to tamp down the fear a little more.

He bent to his self-appointed task purposefully, first wiping off the outer edges and working in toward the datapad left near the center. Kup had left it positioned oddly, turned away from the chair he typically sat at, but that made it easier to clear around. Hook didn't want to risk moving the chair, after all. He bent over the table from the other side and wrapped the mesh around one finger before sliding it around the table around the datapad. Not a difficult job, overall. He just worked inward, making sure to leave no streaks behind.

Focusing on the busywork was inordinately soothing. The degradation of janitorial labor should have intensified the longer he worked, but rather than sharp stabs of shame, it had smoothed down into a throbbing boil. It turned over with every rhythmic motion of his arm, washing from side to side across his spark and clearing his head. This felt wrong, inappropriate, and so right it twinged a strange almost-pleasure down his back.

His visor idly flicked over the datapad, trying not to be annoyed by the dust on the screen.

'_You shouldn't be reading this, Hook.'_

His vents didn't stutter; the fans outright stopped. His whole body froze for a long, terrible moment.

Then the moment was over, but a cold flush of coolant expanded his tubes and chilled him to the spark. Hook's visor jerked to the side, away from the screen, and he snapped upright so fast he almost went over backward. Kup had - what - no!

His head turned away, but his optical sensors still traitorously caught the dull glow of the active screen. He'd been concentrating so hard on wiping up every speck on the table-top that it hadn't registered that the slagging datapad was turned on.

Of course he shouldn't be reading the screen! It was Kup's property. Intellectual property? No, wait, had the old Autobot ever explicitly told him never to - it didn't matter! The words right there on the screen were an order, even if one hadn't existed before now. Even if he'd technically violated the order just by reading it.

But there was still dust on the table.

His hands itched.

It was even more obvious now that he'd wiped away all but two narrow stripes alongside the datapad. He was good, but even he wasn't good enough to wipe those up with his visor offline, not without touching the datapad. If Kup had put that warning right on the screen, Hook had no doubt that he'd be asked about whether or not he'd obeyed. Primus help him if he disobeyed or lied about it now, of all times.

But...there was dust.

His hands itched, compulsively twitching. The job wasn't finished.

The screen was still active.

Hook fidgeted.

Dimming his visor as much as possible without losing his sight completely, he turned his head just enough to see the edge of the datapad. Hesitant and wary, he bent slowly back over the table. His hand shook until he forced it steady, millions of years performing surgery in the middle of battlefields coming to stabilize his rattled nerves. He could do this. Just two stripes of dust to clean up.

He wasn't looking. He wasn't.

'_You shouldn't be reading this, Hook.'_

Fraaaaag. He was in so much trouble.

_'I know you're the most disobedient excuse for a living being this side of the cosmos, however.'_

Wait, what?

The red visor blinked, resetting from sheer surprise as Hook's head turned before he could catch himself. His visor shut off completely, and his vents heaved air as if the extra cycle would calm him down. His hand stayed absolutely still. He couldn't make himself lift it off the table, because lifting it would mean the dust would stay. Two distinct stripes of dust, giving away that he'd started a task but not completed it. Kup _might_ get angry at him for presuming to clean, but he _would_ be angry if the Constructicon did a half-aft job at it.

Plus...dust. Flecks of rust, microscopic specks of paint, flakes of metal, greasy gritty particles sifting from worn tubes and cabling. There. At his fingertip. Hook's engine whined softly as pressure rose, forcing it up despite not shifting to a higher gear. He still couldn't make his finger move.

What did that message mean? The first sentence could have been a warning, a just-in-case order to keep an ex-'Con out of the old Autobot's business. The second sentence, however, implied that Kup expected Hook to have kept reading. Which mean that the conniving sergeant could mean for his Constructicon to keep reading. There could be further instructions on the datapad for the surgeon to follow. There could be an entire list of orders Kup intended him to follow. Despite the fact that it would be blatant disobedience to keep reading.

Primus, because he wasn't stressed enough?!

Hook swallowed against the tight clench of his intakes. Disobey and keep reading, and be punished for disobedience. Obey and stop reading, and potentially be punished for failing to follow orders left for him.

Unnoticed, his CPU plinked through a cycle, clocking faster as the persistent, sourceless glitches subsided into the gestaltcode underlying Hook's own program code. The tight pressure in his chest eased slowly back, expanding around his spark.

Broad shoulders tensed, and a growl escaped both vocalizer and engine. This was ridiculous. He could worry about the stupid datapad _after_ the dust was gone. Even though his pride meant absolutely nothing to Kup, Hook would not allow himself to leave the job just two strokes from being done. He dimmed his visor and tilted his head away from the screen again, jaw set in determination. He tightened his grip on the mesh square and forced himself to finish, wiping firmly to leave the table pristine and dust-free. The dust on the pad itself still bothered him, but he forced himself not to think about that for now as he attacked the last line of dust.

When the last speck of dust had been cleaned from the table, the Constructicon all but threw himself away from it and turned his back to it so he could rein in his whirling thoughts and emotions once more. He pulled in a long ventilation and glared at the wall, squeezing the mesh in his hand.

It didn't matter what he did. One way or another, he was cornered. Kup had put his back to the wall, always one step ahead and cutting off every escape, and the old crank didn't even have to be there to do it. Hook was a surgeon, not a tactician, but he knew when he'd been out-maneuvered.

He turned around, stiff as a board. When both choices were bad, he might as well pick the one that didn't leave him curious. Two reluctant steps returned him to the table, and he bent just enough to read. This was a bad idea, but too late to back out now.

It was a short message. He read it twice. Just because it was short didn't mean it was easy to digest the words.

Hook had never been the type to personify his emotions before, but right then, he had the vision of his pride as a many-legged creature. Many legs with many pointy feet, battering his interior systems to dents and dripping as it thrashed through its death throes. In slow motion, making the pain really stretch out as his ego choked on the instructions and his dignity was dragged kicking and screaming out of whatever hole it'd tried to hide in. It'd been an excruciatingly slow death by multiple blows, patiently beating the beast down again and again; vorns of trampling to finally kill it.

Kup hadn't just run him over. He'd backed up and made sure his tires had dug grooves clear through his Constructicon toy. Roadkill Hook, defeated and dragged home for dissection.

He put his hands down on the table and exhaled, emptying out his entire ventilation system. It took a while. His intakes tried to cough protest, but he suppressed them and kept pressing the fans into reverse. His engine sputtered. Heat flared under his armor, excess charge building as his body responded.

When he was light-headed and overheated, he finally stopped. He pushed himself off the table, standing tall, and held perfectly still, fans on full stop. Something in his chest spasmed, a tick of pain or one last convulsion from his pride as it gave up at.

Then he restarted his vents and calmly walked into the washrack. He had his orders. Clean up, and wait. And while he waited...

It was a saccharine-sweet, humiliatingly juvenile order. It was beyond comprehension on a basic level. He didn't know how Kup had _thought_ of it, much less when his sense of humor had sunk so low. Just - oh, Primus. He didn't want to think about it, but unfortunately, he couldn't pretend that he could avoid the old mech's will.

Hook mechanically went through the motions of washing, obedient to the first order on the datapad. He hadn't noticed when his head had started to clear, but he'd certainly noticed the drenching slick of ice that'd turned the terror around his spark into a sick chasm. It'd been as chaining as it'd been liberating. Meanwhile, his spark celebrated its release from the gestaltlink fear by shrinking into a tiny, writhing open flame inside his chamber, too hot and fluttering erratically. But at least...at least it was _his_ emotion. An agonizing inward coil tightening into a wringing twist, but his all the same.

Delaying wasn't going to make this any easier. Eventually, he had to leave the washrack. Leave the 'rack, walk to the middle of the room, and face the door.

And kneel.

Ratchet had been his parole officer for almost three orns. Round that off to two and three-quarters orn for convenience' sake, despite how his surgeon's mind hated the imprecision. Six joors per orn; two hundred and forty breems per orn. That was six hundred and sixty breems. _Six hundred sixty._

The Constructicon sat back on his tires and put his hands on the floor. The fingers curled, scraping against the plain metal as if he could claw the order away, but he couldn't. He stared at the patterns they traced in the thin coat of grime. Six hundred and sixty wasn't a lot when it came to weaving that many sensor filaments through a transform juncture, but it was a lot when it came to repeating the same words again and again. Especially these words, repeated once for every breem he'd been out from under Kup's control.

His hands trembled finely on the floor. The old Autobot was going to make him regret every one of those breems.

He bent slowly over his hands to touch his forehelm to the floor. One second. Two. After five seconds exactly, he sat back just enough to lift his face and make sure his voice could be clearly heard.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

One.

And again, pressing his helm into the grunge and apologizing for - everything, apparently. A stupid, useless apology to a mech who wasn't even here to listen to him dully repeat an apology for not understanding what was going on, what Kup had done for him, and what was required of him. So the Autobot had written out exactly was required, this time, and he was slagging well going to do it. Kup knew to the letter just how to punish his toy.

Six hundred sixty punishments, like being gently flogged to death by sound a syllable at a time. Hook gritted his teeth, face to the ground, and lifted his head to say the words again. And again and again, while his spark writhed like a skewered worm in his chamber, finally able to _feel_ in a way it hadn't for the past six hundred sixty breems.

It was wonderful and horrible, and it kept going. Ten. Twenty. A hundred times.

His vocalizer registered a hardware error, and he kept apologizing. Two hundred. Of all the times for a piece of metal to succumb to use, it had to be now? Two hundred ten. It was something routine maintenance would have caught, but it wasn't like he had time to stop and replace the frayed wire _now_. Two hundred forty. The wire casing slowly peeled, shaken by the constant vibration of usage to lay directly over the speaker backing. At three hundred repetitions, the casing began to melt in the excess heat, and Hook grimaced against the floor.

In the five-second pauses where he bent to touch his forehelm to the floor, he worked his jaw and turned his head. Three hundred thirty-four. It tightened his throat linkages in a funny manner that shifted his vocalizer around just enough to keep the casing from melting into the vocalizer internal circuitry. Unfortunately, it wasn't a natural position. At three hundred seventy-five, the tubing twisting up by the tensed linkages began to hurt. It was bearable, and still better than wire casing melting onto circuitry.

By five hundred, the small hurt was a persistent pain, and the strange position had frayed the wire further. He couldn't stop, however. He just tried not to swallow and kept his air intakes shallow and even as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

Six hundred fifty-six.

The words were filled with static by now but still audible. Hook's vocalizer ached and the tubing of his throat felt raw, but he continued on. He was so close to being finished with this demeaning, debasing 'order.' Four more, and he could wash his hands of this most recent humiliation.

Except...Kup was not back yet. What if the Constructicon finished and he was still not back? The cranky relic could easily say he had not completed the task, and Hook had no way to prove otherwise. He could not possibly confirm or deny that he had completed the 'task,' such that it was, to the letter. Beyond the painful condition of his vocal components, that was, and even if he pointed that out, Kup would only tell him to quit whining.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

Six hundred fifty-seven.

Maybe he should just keep repeating it until Kup returned, even beyond the instructed number? Maybe that would be best. Surely Kup would be back soon. The shift had ended. Hook might only need to go up to seven hundred. Repeating such a ludicrous apology grated him in ways he, surprisingly enough after all this time, didn't think possible, but if it would satiate the old clank...he couldn't deny that it'd be worth it.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

Six hundred fifty-eight.

But at the same time, what if the sadistic Autobot _did_ come back and claimed Hook had only just started? Would he be so cruel as to force his errant pet to repeat it six hundred and sixty _more_ times while Kup was there to listen? The sickening truth was that he _was_ that cruel when in the right mood. The surgeon honestly was not certain his vocalizer could take it. It was starting to give him rather worrying readings.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

Six hundred fifty-nine.

And that one came out as a static-filled whimper. Every cable and wire in his body tensed when he heard the familiar, soft beep of the keypad outside the door. A sudden surge of nervousness nearly made him purge right there on the floor, and Hook was abruptly relieved he was already kneeling with his forehead on the floor because he was certain the wave of dizziness which swept over him would have sent him to the floor anyway.

He paused to give Kup time to enter his code and enter, then continued despite his vocalizer's painful protests.

"I'm sorry, Master. I am an ignorant fool and not worthy to be your pet."

Six hundred sixty.

The door stayed open for a horrible klik. A full klik. Hook's HUD timed it, and his fuel pump tried to climb out for every beat he remained exposed to whoever walked by outside. His forehelm dropped back to the floor, pressing harder as each second passed. He reminded himself that he was no longer Kup's charge. He was here because he wanted, needed to submit, not because a system had forced him here. There were no legal ramifications for being seen kneeling at the old mech's feet. There were no more official barriers.

If anyone looked through the open door, they'd see a mech voluntarily prostrating himself before someone. The fact that the mech was an ex-Decepticon or the only paroled Constructicon no longer mattered. Two consenting mechs indulging in a power-play fetish was a curiosity, not a consent issue. So seeing Cybertron's top surgeon groveling on the floor and everyone's favorite old storyteller gently stepping on the back of his helm was a novelty. Weird and wildly kinky, but legal.

Then the door finally, _finally_ closed, and what they did behind that door was no longer anyone's business but their own.

* * *

**[ * * * * *]**

**Authors' Note:**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

_Heyla, Bibliotecaria_D here. I was editor on the project, so any errors can be blamed on me. I just want to put in a quick note here about who was involved and what we did._

_On this round-robin, we had 9 people come play: 8 authors and 1 artist. Together, we represented 7 different countries from all over the world. 3 people did not speak English as their native language. 1 person had never written fanfiction before. 7 of the 8 authors professed to not know the either (A) the characters or (B) the psychology of BDSM - or, (C) they were so uncomfortable with either/or that writing this story felt impossible. Sometimes all someone could manage was a sentence or two before having to bow out to recover. We pushed a lot of boundaries writing this._

_Considering what we accomplished? Persistence was worth it. This fic is what 9 completely different almost-strangers can do working together._

_All because 1 person was bored._

_The round-robin fic is finished finally. If you got this far, I'm going to encourage you to leave some feedback. There are 9 people who'd really like to just hear what you thought about our work. _

_Also, if you got this far and are interested in the continuing adventures of HooKup, I went on writing a series because the person whose fault this all was continued to doodle pictures about it. I will continued to blame her boredom for this. _


End file.
